Top North Carolina Republicans Are Going Ballistic Over Justice Dept. Announcement HB2 Is Illegal
Republican Leaders Allege President Obama Is Exposing Children to ‘Exploitation at the Hands of Sexual Predators’
Three of the North Carolina Republican Party’s top leaders responsible for HB2 are blaming President Barack Obama for Wednesday afternoon’s Department of Justice announcement that their anti-LGBT law violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and is not to be enforced. None mentioned Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the head of the DOJ, in their attacks.
HB2 was their “solution” to a problem that did not exist. They created a wide-sweeping law and were repeatedly told by legal experts it was illegal, yet they rammed it through in 12 hours. Now, they insist they are unaccountable and do not have to answer to any other authority.
EARLIER:Â NC Gov. Pat McCrory Denounces Obama Administration and Justice Dept. ‘Claim’ That HB2 Is Illegal
Lt. Governor Dan Forest, who also presides over the state Senate, charged President Obama with using North Carolina’s “children and their educational futures as pawns to advance an agenda that will ultimately open those same children up to exploitation at the hands of sexual predators.” Forest called it, “by far, the sickest example of the depths the … administration will stoop to ‘fundamentally transform our nation’,†according to the Charlotte Observer.
Powerful Senate Leader Phil Berger, who has a lengthy resume devoted to anti-LGBT policies and legislation, quickly issued a statement on his website. He classified as a “threat” the Justice Department’s letter demanding HB2 not be enforced and demanding the State respond by Monday. Berger also called the DOJ’s actions “a gross overreach” that “deserves to be struck down in federal court.”
Speaker of the House Tim Moore also directed his anger at President Obama, hyperbolically claiming that the DOJ’s letters “serve to give notice that President Obama intends to sue the State of North Carolina unless we yield to his views.”
“They are not court decrees or automatic declarations of law and the issues raised in his letters are far from being decided,” Moore said in a statement, ignoring that those “views” have been tested in federal court.
“President Obama’s interpretation of Title VII and Title IX would radically change all universally accepted protections of privacy and safety that are based on the anatomical differences between the sexes,” Moore insisted.
The three HB2 ringleaders were not alone in their condemnation of the Dept. of Justice’s decision. Anti-gay hate group American Family Association posted this response to Twitter:
The U.S. Justice Dept. has become a political machine for liberals. America must fight this tyranny. #HB2 https://t.co/fhfpyhkFAz
— American Family Assc (@AmericanFamAssc) May 4, 2016
Fox News religion “reporter” Todd Starnes offered this:
Breaking News: Obama DOJ threatens NC – either allow men into ladies rooms or lose federal money.
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) May 4, 2016
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Image: Screenshot via YouTube
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