Republican presidential candidate Ted
Cruz on Thursday threw his support behind a controversial law in
North Carolina that targets the LGBT community.
Passage of House Bill 2 has spurred at
least two companies – PayPal
and Deutsche
Bank – to freeze investment plans in North Carolina,
politicians to restrict state employee travel and artists to cancel
performances.
The bill prohibits cities from
approving LGBT protections and bars students attending public
institutions from using the bathroom that does not conform to their
gender at birth.
Supporters of the bathroom restriction
say it's needed to keep women and children safe from men pretending
to be women entering the girls' restroom. Opponents note that laws
in other states that allow transgender people to use the bathroom of
their choice have not led to such incidents.
(Related: Delaware
Gov. Jack Markell debunks “bathroom predator” myth behind
transgender bills.)
“The state has the power to pass
their own laws to make a determination that men should not be going
to the bathroom with little girls,” Cruz said during an MSNBC town
hall conducted in Buffalo, New York.
“As a father, I'm not excited about
men being able to go alone into a bathroom with my daughters. And I
think that it is a perfectly reasonable determination for the people
to make,” he added.
Cruz went on to criticize businesses
opposed to the law, claiming that they had surrendered to political
correctness and were “trampling” on religious liberty.