North Carolina lawmakers have called a special session at a cost of $42,000 per day in order to fearmonger and potentially block enactment of an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council last month. It was scheduled to take effect April 1. Jim Morrill reports:
Lawmakers acted on their own after Republican Gov. Pat McCrory declined to call a special session, saying he believes legislators are considering a measure that goes far beyond the Charlotte ordinance.
But Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who oversees the Senate, and House Speaker Tim Moore, both Republicans, invoked a seldom-used constitutional provision to call themselves into session at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
“We aim to repeal this ordinance before it goes into effect to provide for the privacy and protection of the women and children of our state,” Forest and Moore said in a joint statement.
Oh, yes, the women and children—who are in grave danger because transgender people will be able to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. Or at least, that’s the lawmakers’ excuse for blocking protections for gay, bisexual, and transgender folks across the board. Here’s some bad news for these legislators—they’re a little late. Transgender folks are already using bathrooms, they just didn't know it.
But apparently North Carolina lawmakers haven’t taken their heads out of the sand long enough to look at Georgia—where the NFL just threatened to blockade future consideration of a Super Bowl there based on their “license to discriminate” bill. Perhaps the city council in Charlotte, the business hub of the state, knows a little more about which policies will continue to attract outside investment to North Carolina.