I try my best to be balanced. I want to be a voice of reason and try to understand both sides of an issue– any issue – and see how we can reach common ground. But there are some times that I just have to call out hatred and discrimination for what it is.
In violation of the Supreme Court’s decision in Romer v. Evans, the North Carolina legislature and Governor have voided Charlotte’s anti-discrimination law protecting the rights of the LGBT community in public accommodations. They have said to gay people: Your rights are harmful to woman and children. You can be denied service in a restaurant. You can be refused housing. You can be fired. No one has to provide any public service to you if they believe you’re gay. And we are also taking away your rights to do anything about it in our state.
A restaurant could ask me and my husband our status, and we could be refused service because we are gay. We could be refused a room at a hotel. We could be refused an apartment we wanted to rent. I COULD BE FIRED FROM MY JOB!
The North Carolina legislature also took away my right to democracy! Let me give you an example of just how bad this law is for the LGBT community:
EXAMPLE #1: I’m a dog owner, and I want my community to pass a law that says all restaurants have to allow me to bring my dog into the restaurant. FULLY WITHIN MY RIGHTS.
EXAMPLE #2: I’m gay, and I want my community to pass a law that says all restaurants have to allow me to bring my husband into the restaurant to have dinner with me. NC PROHIBITS ME FROM DOING THAT.
I can get better legal protections for my dog than I can for my husband! You might read this and think, well that can’t be right? Wouldn’t that violate the US Constitution? And you’d be right.
In 1992, the voters of Colorado passed an amendment to their constitution that prohibited local governments from passing laws protecting the rights of gays and lesbians in jobs, housing and other public accommodations. In 1996, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down that law because it violated the Equal Protection Clause and created two classes of citizens – gay versus straight. Gay people couldn’t seek laws protecting them from discrimination whereas straight people or other classes (such as dog owners) could.
You might wonder why these anti-gay discrimination laws are passing when a majority of people, even in North Carolina, oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians.
IT’S THE NEW GAY BOGEYMAN! What is the new gay bogeyman? It’s a man dressed up as a woman who uses the women’s bathroom so that he can molest women and children. Although no one can cite an incident where this has ever occurred, this is the latest campaign of fear-mongering that is used to strike down anti-gay discrimination. It’s what the opposition used in Houston to strike down Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance. It’s what the NC legislators and the governor said when they passed the anti-gay law
If there’s really a problem with people using the wrong bathroom, how do we solve it? If a person identifies herself and presents herself as a woman, then how will I know she is biologically a male? I can’t go up to someone and ask to see a driver’s license. So we’ll need people to wear an armband or something that will identify our assigned gender at birth. Maybe it could be a pin that we could all wear that let everyone know – I might look like a woman and act like a woman, but I was assigned a male gender at birth. This sounds very familiar of course because it’s how Germany operated for many years.
I’m not calling people bigoted or homophobic because they disagree with me on whether or not butt sex is a sin. If they’re against two guys porking but not against guys eating pork, I’ll call them inconsistent on their interpretation of Scripture. I won’t engage in a personal attack or name-calling. But I have to draw the line when an entire state says to its LGBT citizens – welcome to second-class.
We do not live in a democracy if the minority is not protected from the tyranny of the majority. North Carolina – shame on you!