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North Carolina Lawmakers To Ban All LGBT Nondiscrimination Ordinances In Response To Charlotte

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Republicans Holding Special Session Today to Pass Sweeping Anti-Gay Legislation

Led by Republican House Speaker Tim Moore (photo), and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, the president of the Senate, lawmakers in the North Carolina General Assembly will meet today to pass a bill that will ban all LGBT protection ordinances throughout the state. The unprecedented move is a direct response to the Charlotte City Council’s lawful passage of an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance last month. That law, which would have gone into effect April 1, riled conservatives by allowing transgender residents to use public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

The proposed bill is broad. Not only does it void LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances throughout the state, it attacks transgender citizens by revoking their right to use public restrooms based on gender identity. It also mandates that only the General Assembly is allowed to regulate public accommodations, such as restrooms.

WATCH: Benham Brothers Headline Protest Calling For Special Legislative Session To Kill Charlotte NDO

But it goes even further, mandating that only the General Assembly can regulate employment discrimination ordinances – another assault directed at LGBT citizens. 

The bill is entitled, “An Act to Provide for Single Sex Multiple Occupancy Bathroom and Changing Facilities in Schools and Public Agencies and to Create Statewide Consistency in Regulation of Employment and Public Accommodations.” According to WNCN, it will require “that multi-occupancy bathrooms be limited to just one gender, using anatomy and birth certificates as a guide.”

It “allows school districts to use single occupancy bathrooms to make accommodations for students in special circumstances,” but it’s unclear what those special circumstances are.

Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who threatened “immediate state legislative intervention” if Charlotte passed a nondiscrimination bill, is expected to sign the legislation.

Today’s special session will cost taxpayers $42,000.

If the move by Republican lawmakers sounds patriarchal, it is. It violates the civil rights of North Carolina’s LGBT citizens, but it also violates the rights of local cities and towns to create laws to protect their citizens. And, it violates the will of the people, who, according to polls, don’t believe lawmakers should pass the bill.

“Only 25% of voters in the state think the General Assembly should override Charlotte’s recently passed anti-discrimination ordinance, compared to 51% who think Charlotte should have the right to pass its own laws without interference from on high,” Public Policy Polling reports. “There’s actually bipartisan consensus on the issue with Democrats (58/17), independents (48/21), and Republicans (45/38) alike believing Charlotte’s new law should be left alone by the General Assembly.”

UPDATE:
Equality North Carolina posted this tweet:

UPDATE II:

Listen Live Now: North Carolina Lawmakers Vote on Bill to Void All LGBT Nondiscrimination Ordinances

 

Stay with NCRM throughout the day as we publish the latest news on this legislation. And please follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

 

EARLIER:

Franklin Graham Just Went Berserk Over Tonight’s Charlotte LGBT Nondiscrimination Vote

Benham Brothers: Passage Of Charlotte LGBT Protections Bill Will Allow Us To Become WNBA Stars

North Carolina GOP Speaker Vows To Nullify Charlotte’s ‘Radical’ New LGBT Nondiscrimination Bill

 

Image: Screenshot via Carolina Business Review/YouTube

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Pete Buttigieg Nails Trump for His Ugly Comments About Wounded Vets

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During his Sunday morning appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called out Donald Trump over reports he told military leaders he didn’t want wounded vets to be seen by the public while he was president.

In a recent Atlantic profile of General Mark Milley, the retiring military office recounted the former president telling him “no one wants to see” wounded soldiers, with Milley adding he found Trump’s attitude to those serving their country “superficial, callous, and, at the deepest human level, repugnant.”

Buttigieg, who served in Afghanistan during his 8 years while in the Naval Reserve, was asked by CNN host Dana Bash about the former president’s apparent distaste for service members.

“I want to ask you about a new Atlantic profile that says that then President Trump complained to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley after an Army veteran who lost a leg in combat sang at an event at the Pentagon,” Bash prompted her guest. “Trump reportedly told Milley, ‘Why do you bring people like that here, no one wants to see that, the wounded.'”

“After that article came out, Trump attacked Milley on social media, kind of a rambling post, but suggested that milley deserved the death penalty. You’re a veteran– what’s your response?” she asked.

“It’s just the latest in a pattern of outrageous attacks on the people who keep the country safe,” the Biden administration official replied.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

After pointing to fellow vets who suffered horrific injuries, he added, “These are the kind of people that deserve respect and a hell of a lot more than that from every American, and definitely from every American president.”

“And the idea that an American president, the person to whom service members look at as a commander in chief, and the person who sets the tone for this entire country could think that way or act that way or talk that way about anyone in uniform, and certainly about those who put their bodies on the line and sacrificed in ways that most Americans will never understand, and I guess wounded veterans make president Trump feel uncomfortable.”

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‘Scared to Death’: Trump’s Prison Panic Admission Means He Knows He’s Doomed Says Legal Expert

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Reacting to a report that Donald Trump has been quizzing his attorneys about what type of prison he likely will be sent to, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner stated that is not only an indication that he knows he’s going to be convicted but also an admission of guilt.

Speaking with MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart, the attorney was asked about a recent Rolling Stone report about Trump’s prison panic.

As Rolling Stone reported, Trump asked if he’s “be sent to a ‘club fed’ style prison — a place that’s relatively comfortable, as far these things go — or a ‘bad’ prison? Would he serve out a sentence in a plush home confinement? Would government officials try to strip him of his lifetime Secret Service protections? What would they make him wear, if his enemies actually did ever get him in a cell — an unprecedented set of consequences for a former leader of the free world.”

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

According to the attorney, Trump is revealing himself by asking for so many details.

“What does this tell you about Trump’s mindset?” host Capehart asked.

“It tells me he is scared to death” Kirschner quickly answered. “It tells me he has overwhelming consciousness of guilt because he knows what he did wrong and he knows he is about to be held accountable for his crimes. So it is not surprising that he is obsessing.”

“If he was confident that he would be completely exonerated, would he have to obsess about what his future time in prison might look like?” he suggested. “I think the last refuge for Donald Trump can be seen in a recent post where he urged the Republicans to defund essentially the prosecutions against him. which, to this prosecutor, Jonathan, smells a lot like an attempt to obstruct justice.”

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Image via Shutterstock

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‘Vulgar and Lewd’: Trump Judge Cites Extremist Group to Allow Drag Show Ban

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A federal judge in Texas known for a ruling that attempted to ban a widely-used abortion drug is citing an extremist anti-LGBTQ group in his ruling allowing a ban on drag shows to stay in place.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney for an anti-LGBTQ conservative Christian legal organization, and a member of the Federalist Society, in his 26-page ruling dated Thursday cited the “About” page of Gays Against Groomers to claim, “it’s unclear how drag shows unmistakably communicate advocacy for LGBT rights.”

Judge Kacsmaryk, appointed by Donald Trump twice before finally assuming office in 2019, suggests the First Amendment does not provide for freedom of expression for drag shows, calls drag “sexualized conduct,” and says it is “more regulable” because “children are in the audience.”

READ MORE: ‘The Public Deserves to Know’: Abortion Pill Banning Judge Redacted Details About Millions of Dollars in His Stock Portfolio

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern adds, “Kacsmaryk’s conclusion that drag is probably NOT protected by the First Amendment conflicts with decisions from Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Montana which held that drag is constitutionally protected expression. It also bristles with undisguised hostility toward LGBTQ people.”

Calling the judge “a proud Christian nationalist who flatly refuses to apply binding Supreme Court precedent when it conflicts with his extremist far-right beliefs,” Stern at Slate writes that Kacsmaryk ruled drag “may be outlawed to protect ‘the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.’ In short, he concluded that drag fails to convey a message, while explaining all the reasons why he’s offended by the message it conveys.”

Stern does not let Kacsmaryk off the hook there.

“From almost any other judge, the ruling in Spectrum WT v. Wendler would be a shocking rejection of basic free speech principles; from Kacsmaryk, it’s par for the course. This is, after all, the judge who sought to ban medication abortion nationwide, restricted minors’ access to birth control, seize control over border policy to exclude asylum-seekers, and flouted recent precedent protecting LGBTQ+ equality,” Stern says.

READ MORE: Far-Right Judge Under Fire for Failing to Disclose Interviews on Civil Rights – but LGBTQ Community Had Warned Senators

“He is also poised to bankrupt Planned Parenthood by compelling them to pay a $1.8 billion penalty on truly ludicrous grounds. And he is not the only Trump-appointed judge substituting his reactionary beliefs for legal analysis. We have reached a point where these lawless decisions are not only predictable but inevitable, and they show no sign of stopping: Their authors are still just settling into a decadeslong service in the federal judiciary.”

West Texas A&M University President Walter V. Wendler penned the letter that sparked the lawsuit.

Titled, “A Harmless Drag Show? No Such Thing,” Wendler wrote: “I believe every human being is created in the image of God and, therefore, a person of dignity. Being created in God’s image is the basis of Natural Law. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, prisoners of the culture of their time as are we, declared the Creator’s origin as the foundational fiber in the fabric of our nation as they breathed life into it. Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not.”

Journalist Chris Geidner concludes, “It’s an extremely biased ruling by a judge who has established that he does not care about being overturned — even by the most conservative appeals court in the nation.”

READ MORE: ‘Corruption of the Highest Order’: Experts ‘Sickened’ at ‘Definitely Bought’ Clarence Thomas and His ‘Pay to Play’ Lifestyle

 

 

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