If you force yourself to read through the governor's suit (written by too-clever-by-half lawyers), you're confronted by some astounding logic:
HB2 doesn't discriminate against transgender people because transgender people don't actually exist. The only thing that exists is the "thang" between your legs when you were born. Every employee of North Carolina is required to use the toilet that conforms to that "thang." “All state employees are required to use the bathroom and changing facilities assigned to persons of their same biological sex, regardless of gender identity, or transgender status,” reads McCrory's complaint. See, everyone has access. Where's the discrimination in that?
That constitutes a denial that a transgender person has a different “gender identity,” which flies in the face of reality. But the governor has decided to stake his fortunes on that equation: if "gender identity" doesn't exist, then there is no discrimination in HB2.
The governor's complaint also argues that transgender citizens can’t be discriminated against because they are not specifically named in Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964. Which sounds like a tacit admission to us: North Carolina is discriminating against transgender citizens because they're unprotected by federal law. Open season!
4 comments:
Was the gov's suit, by the way, written by the Liberty Council, the same group that latched on to Kim Davis in Kentucky?
It sure reads like their handiwork.
Let's see. I oppossed Charlotte's City Ordinance on bathroom use because it is the most 1984 action of Big Brother that could be imagined. Big Brother thinks it is a good idea to let men use the same bathrooms and showers as your wives and daughters. This is the most illogical and stupid idea that could possibly exist. Yet, the left wing nuts have drunk the big brother Kool Aid to the point they have abandoned any semblance of reality, intellect or reason,or morals and made men in women's bathrooms an idol, beyond all others, to be worshipped. I certainly expect a burning bush to arise in Loretta Lynch's office and a voice saying "all perverts must be allowed to enter the bathroom and shower with the opposite sex. Obama I will send you a mouthpiece in Loretta Lynch to help you do my will". However, despite my strong feelings, I remained quite as the good people of Charlotte voted on their Ordinance and passed it. I don't live in Charlotte and what purely local laws the City of Charlotte chooses to pass is simply none of my business. As much as I oppose Charlotte's "potty law" I oppose HB2 just as much. The state legislature has ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS telling a local government what it can or cannot do in purely local matters. For the same reason, I oppose Loretta Lynch's attempts to illegally stick her nose into a matter that is none of the Fed's business just to satisfy her liberal friends.It seems the right and left wing nuts fight among themselves while America goes to hell. Last week was the National Day of Prayer; did anyone notice?
This is a fundamental disagreement about religious belief versus the rights of individuals. The last time I checked, disagreements over basic rights of individuals trumps any religious-oriented limits put in place by a state or locality.
Have you read the court filings from the Governor and Lynch?
McCrory's legal team uses the same argument about transgenders promoted by evangelical groups - transgenders don't exist and gender is just about what kind of thing you've got between your legs. The Federal argument is that scientific and medical authorities have for years understood that gender is a mix of body and brain chemistry and genetic differences and that the courts have agreed with this interpretation.
The legislature used the same arguments to defend Amendment One - gays and lesbians don't exist, they're just "confused" and go against the "natural order" of things, and thus have no right to marry. Segregationists used the same arguments to prevent mixed race marriage or desegregation - it went against God's "natural plan".
The hard truth here is that the bathroom law is just symbolic. It's a way for the state to promulgate one religious point of view, touted by evangelical Christians and some other faiths, that transgenders don't exist and that this isn't a "real" medical condition. Meanwhile, worldwide, a transgender person is murdered every 29 hours for simply being who they are and they way they were born.
"States rights" and "local control" holds up if you're talking about most aspects of citizen activity. It always fails when it's used to deny individual rights.
We fought a Civil War over that basic question. The South lost.
Jerry Wilson has bought the Christian Right's talking point: "let men use the same bathrooms and showers as your wives and daughters." That shows us that Jerry Wilson doesn't even understand what transgender means. At some point, Mr. Wilson, your self righteousness must be trumped by rationality.
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