This past Tuesday, Gov. Pat McCrory (R) doubled down on his hateful, harmful and bigoted position on LGBT rights by making a condescending video after he signed HB. 2, which was passed in a special session of North Carolina's General Assembly last week.
The Republican controlled state legislature dubbed the harsh anti-LGBT law necessary to protect children, and others' rights to privacy.
In the video released on Gov. McCrory's website, he chided the Democratic gubernatorial candidate running against him, North Carolina's Attorney General Roy Cooper, for refusing to prosecute the law.
Strikingly, the Governor uses the video to advance his own political points while shaming politicians all over the country who have stood up against the Bill, which is being characterized by its Republican backers as protecting children. In fact, the Bill took protections for LGBT people that were provided by local governments and invalidated them. In doing so in such a swift manner, the General Assembly placed North Carolina at the top of a heap of states that are legislating hate. It mandates, among other things, that transgender people must use the restroom of the gender on their birth certificates.
HB 2 invalidated local ordinances throughout the State that mandated inclusiveness for LGBT individuals, after Charlotte's city council passed an ordinance that protected those in the transgender community who used bathroom facilities.
Many state and local governments, and U.S. and international companies are calling for an outright ban on commerce with North Carolina. The Bill itself is designed to further advance rhetoric that harms the transgender community, bastardizing their needs, and feeding into fears that are unwarranted. It is transgender people who are at risk of violence if they don't use the correct restroom, not children.
Watching the video of Gov. McCrory peeing on the public's doorstep and telling them it is raining adds insult to injury. Instead of shaming Attorney General Cooper's principled stance against prosecuting a law that is clearly discriminatory, perhaps the Governor should focus on the harm he and his Republican led General Assembly are doing to the most marginalized in their community.