North Carolina Bathroom Law collapses under weight of multiple blackmails
by Howie Katz
The NCAA gave North Carolina a deadline of this week to repeal its controversial Bathroom Law or else! The or else is the loss March Madness games as long as the law remains in effect. The North Carolina legislature met the NCAA’s blackmail demand Thursday and the state’s new Democratic governor has indicated he will sign the repeal measure.
When North Carolina passed its bathroom bill a year ago it was immediately set upon by the NBA which switched its 2017 All Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans. Bruce Springsteen took his scheduled concert for a hike. The NFL announced that none of its special events would be held in the state as long as the Bathroom Law remained in effect. Major conventions were switched to other states and some major corporations announced a boycott of the state.
Thus North Carolina was subjected to multiple blackmails … and they succeeded. It was estimated that the controversial law would cost the state some $4 billion over 12 years.
The repeal of the Bathroom Law, however, pleased nobody. Conservative lawmakers were infuriated. In order to mollify them, the legislature included a compromise provision which prohibits local jurisdictions from passing any of their own anti-discrimination laws or ordinances until December 2020. That has angered the LGBT community and human rights groups. And the conservatives are still pissed off.
North Carolina’s Bathroom Law was identical to the bill passed by the Texas senate. Texas has received the same blackmail threats from the NFL, NBA and some major corporations. The NCAA will almost surely impose a March Madness boycott of the state if the bill, which is lingering in the House, were to pass.
There is an old saying: Money talks, bullshit walks! Passage of a Bathroom Law will cost the state of Texas billions of dollars. And that is the real reason why the Texas Bathroom Law will not be enacted.
We are in the era of political correctness and those of us who are conservatives might as well learn to live with it … or suffer the consequences.
Howie Katz is a former law enforcement officer and retired criminal justice professor. In 1969 he founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. He currently resides in Houston, Texas. You can see more of his writing at http://barkgrowlbite.blogspot.com and http://theunconventionalgazette.blogspot.com.
The Texas bill is not identical to the NC bill
Jim, the N.C. law required that people at a government-run facility, including a public school, must use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate, if the rooms in question are multiple-occupancy.
That makes it almost identical to the Texas bill.
Since when was money anointed to be the sole determing factor in doing what is right? Or what is wrong? Regardless of whether you favor or oppose the bill, money ain’t the issue. JP
J.P., you had an illustrious career as a State Senator and Land Commissioner and you always got my vote, including for Lt. Governor, but please don’t tell us that money ain’t the issue. Money is an issue with just about everything that comes up before the legislature.
The Senators were led to believe the State would not take a hit if the bathroom bill were to be enacted into law. And the NFL’s attempt at blackmail was meaningless since the Super Bowl has just been held in Houston and would probably not be held again in Texas for years.
The bill is being held up by Speaker Joe Strauss, but I am sure the members of the House have taken note of what happened in North Carolina.
It comes down to the interests of NCAA & their ilk or the safety of women and children. Simple. In a Democrat city, 62{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of Houstonians voted against allowing men in women’s restrooms in 2015. In a Republican state, with such huge percentages against, are our legislators really going to vote against the will of the majority of the population?
All the BS about loosing a dime is BS. Look at Wallace’s testimony in the Texas Senate committee and all the facts were admitted to being fake.
The obvious compromise here is, let HB6 die a natural death, and in return, get a gentleman’s (gentleperson’s?) agreement from the gblt’ers that they won’t press the issue and try for another HERO. Seems like whatever we are doing now is working OK..
I’d prefer to not see Texas on the front lines of the culture wars.
Full disclosure: I’m a libertarian….support gay marriage, against the HERO, against HB6, and don’t want people with outies in the women’s shower rooms. The truly transgender people are already peeing somewhere and the sky hasn’t fallen, why not just continue with whatever they are doing?
Voted and worked against HERO, but I am only a voter, the Republicans in charge care more about the money they get from businesses. The American middle class will always come in a long second with the scoundrels we have elected from both parties.
There is no history of Transgendered citizens causing any problems in restrooms of either gender. Republican politicians, however, have a criminal perversion record that should preclude their using any public restrooms.
Pat Bryan,
There was no history of transgendered citizens getting attacked in restrooms prior to Annise Parker declaring on her own that it was a problem and insisting that the rights of 99.99{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of citizens be submissive to the rights of 0.01{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}.
People who have dressed up as the opposite sex have been using the restroom of appropriate to their dress for thousands of years.
Now you want to make it legal for men to not have to bother to cross dress to leer at little girls in public showers and restrooms. Decent people have had enough.