Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina
on Thursday filed two bills aimed at repealing a law that targets the
LGBT community.
House Bill 2 blocks cities and
municipalities from enacting LGBT protections and prohibits
transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice in
government buildings, including schools. Passage of the law during a
one-day special session in March sparked an economic boycott of the
state. According to an
analysis by Wired,
House Bill 2 has cost the state an estimated $400 million in lost
revenue.
Both proposals would repeal House Bill
2 and expand nondiscrimination “protected status” to include
sexual orientation and gender identity.
“It would provide enhanced statewide
protections in a number of areas,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison,
author of House Bill 82. “These added protections will apply to
housing, employment, public accommodations, credit, insurance and
education. This bill reflects North Carolina values, unlike House
Bill 2. It's long overdue.”
Rep. Cecil Brockman's House Bill 78
would also increase penalties for crimes committed in public
bathrooms and locker rooms by as much as seven years. The provision
is a nod to Republicans who claim without evidence that House Bill 2
is needed to protect women and girls from male predators posing as
transgender women.
Conservatives attacked the bills.
“These bills would open bathrooms,
showers, locker rooms and changing facilities across North Carolina
to anyone at any time and would enact into law the exact weapons used
in other states to attack and punish people of faith who are seeking
to peacefully live their lives and operate their businesses in
accordance with their deeply held religious beliefs,” John Rustin,
president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council, told
WRAL News in an email.
Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of
the North Carolina Values Coalition, called the bills unnecessary in
a statement.
“There is no justification for adding
new categories creating special rights for sexual orientation and
gender identity to existing laws, yet Gov. Roy Cooper, Democrat
leaders and national and state sports organizations have launched an
all-out effort to leverage collegiate sports to do just that, in
addition to coercing our citizens to lose their privacy and safety in
bathrooms,” Fitzgerald said.