House Bill 2 is the 2016 law eliminating local LGBTQ anti-discrimination measures and segregating public bathrooms by birth-certificate designated sex. Several efforts to repeal the bill have failed, and from the deep, reality-warping polarization of our state leaders’ public statements, it’s not hard to see why.
On the one hand, you have Republican leaders, such as N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore, who frame HB2 as an essential shield to our safety in bathrooms.
On Feb. 15 of this year, Moore explained his criteria for any HB2 repeal bill: “The thing we’ve made clear from day one is that we need to maintain the privacy and the protection of individuals.”
It’s hard to see how repealing HB2 endangers our safety in bathrooms in any real way. With or without HB2, it is illegal to peep, or, of course, assault people. Moreover, HB2 precludes anti-discrimination rules for transgender folks in public accomodations — the same rules that are in effect in many cities nationwide, as well as the whole state of Maryland, without problem.
Despite what you’d think from listening to Moore, it’s clear that HB2 does not protect us from any real threat.
On the other hand, you have the Democrats. On Feb. 26, Gov. Cooper rejected a compromise HB2 repeal bill, arguing that a provision in the bill that would make local jurisdictions put new anti-discrimination ordinances up to a vote, “would be like putting the Civil Rights Act to a popular vote in cities in the South during the 1960s.”
That sounds like a good principled stand, but it also speaks to a detachment from reality. People come to a consensus that certain things are rights: Things they think are important enough to receive some degree of insulation from the democratic process. Democrats are going to have to play politics if they hope for any repeal.
It’s a shame that our leaders spend their time talking past each other. If HB2 is to be repealed, they must address each other directly.
