In his first State of the State speech
delivered Monday, Democratic governor Roy Cooper called on lawmakers
to repeal House Bill 2.
Approved by lawmakers during a one-day
special session and signed into law by Cooper's Republican
predecessor, House Bill 2 limits LGBT rights and is the only state
law in the nation to prohibit transgender people from using the
bathroom of their choice in schools and other government buildings.
Passage of House Bill 2 led to an
economic boycott of North Carolina worth more than $400 million in
lost revenue, according to an analysis by Wired.
“This law has damaged our state,”
Cooper said. “The Legislature must erase this law from our books.
It drains the energy from what should be our work for the people of
this state.”
“Let's do it this week. It's time to
move on,” he added.
LGBT rights advocates applauded
Cooper's inclusion of repeal in his speech.
“We commend Governor Roy Cooper for
his continued support to repeal the deeply discriminatory HB2,”
Ames Simmons, director of transgender policy at Equality NC, said in
a statement.
“Since day one, HB2 has been nothing
but trouble for North Carolina, and the blame for that lies squarely
at the feet of the legislators who refuse to take any meaningful
action to repeal it,” said JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president
of policy and political affairs at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
“Gov. Cooper is ready to move forward from this debacle; Republican
leaders in the General Assembly and the Senate must follow suit.”