North Carolina’s New Anti-LGBTQ Law Is Vicious, Shameful, and Unconstitutional

[KamaAina]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/03/24/north_carolina_s_anti_lgbtq_law_is_unconstitutional.html

On Wednesday night, in the course of just a few hours, North Carolina became the most anti-LGBTQ state in the country.

In a special session called for exactly this purpose—and which cost taxpayers $42,000 a day—the legislature passed a stunningly vicious, completely unprecedented bill stripping LGBTQ North Carolinians of their rights. The measure revokes local gay and trans nondiscrimination ordinances throughout the state, effectively legalizing anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and forbids trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. That includes trans public school students, many of whom will now, in effect, be barred from using the bathroom at school.

Shortly after the legislature passed the bill—over the objections of every Senate Democrat, all of whom walked out of the chamber in protest—Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed it into law. Explaining that he was eager to nullify Charlotte’s new LGBT nondiscrimination measure, McCrory wrote, “The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte.”

McCrory should know something about government overreach. The gallingly cruel bill he just signed doesn’t just transgress basic norms of decency and morality. It also violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution.