Pressure is mounting over N.C. House Bill 2
For North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and state lawmakers who supported the state’s regressive House Bill 2 that targets LGBT rights, the chickens are coming home to roost. And they’re very expensive chickens.
In the wake of this year’s passage of HB2 – commonly known as the “bathroom bill” because it requires transgender people to use restrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificates – big-name entertainers have been canceling concerts in the Tar Heel State, the NBA pulled its 2017 all-star game from Charlotte, and PayPal rescinded a plan to create a 400-employee operation center, also in Charlotte. Now the heavy hits are arriving.
On Monday, the NCAA announced that seven championship events, including high-profile basketball tournament games, are being pulled out of North Carolina because of HB2.
The chairman of the organization’s board of governors, Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, said, “This decision is consistent with the NCAA’s longstanding core values of inclusion, student-athlete well-being and creating a culture of fairness.”
The NCAA also noted several cities and five states – Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington and Connecticut – bar official travel by public employees and representatives of public institutions to North Carolina. That prohibition could affect athletes, coaches and athletic department officials.
McCrory’s response was predictable: “The issue of redefining gender and basic norms of privacy will be resolved in the near future in the United States for not only North Carolina, but the entire nation. I strongly encourage all public and private institutions to both respect and allow our nation’s judicial system to proceed without economic threats or political retaliation toward the 22 states that are currently challenging government overreach.”
Government overreach? McCrory and his largely Republican partners in the state legislature consider it overreach when the federal government tries to tell the state what it must do on a particular issue, such as gay marriage or LGBT rights. But it wasn’t overreach when McCrory and state lawmakers used HB2 to block cities such as Charlotte from enacting their own LGBT nondiscrimination measures? Sounds like pure hypocrisy to us.
The NCAA wasn’t the only major organization to bring the hammer down on North Carolina this week. The Atlantic Coast Conference, which includes North Carolina schools North Carolina State, the University of North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest, followed the NCAA template and will move all of its athletic championships out of North Carolina unless HB2 is repealed. According to an Associated Press report, that will affect 10 neutral-site events during the current academic year, including the ACC football championship game, which had been scheduled for Charlotte in December.
It’s safe to say that HB2 is costing North Carolina – particularly businesses there that rely on these big events, and the employees of those businesses – millions upon millions of dollars.
Executive Director Scott Dupree of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance said the NCAA and ACC announcements were “unprecedented and historically bad … probably the worst ever in terms of lost business and damage to our brand.”
If McCrory and Republican leaders in the state legislature think this issue is going to go away, they’re sorely mistaken. Of course, McCrory might not be the point man of the anti-LGBT fight much longer. He’s in a tough re-election battle, and a new governor could be in place come January.
We hope that would be the impetus for North Carolina’s leaders to rescind this shameful legislation.