Bigotry Doesn’t Pay As North Carolina Governor Tries To Walk Back Bathroom Law

Herein you will find some of the most careful straddling of a very thin political line that you have ever seen.

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After major corporate backlash, Governor Pat McCrory (R-NC) signed an Executive Order to sort of walk back partially the bigotry he just signed into law, because it turns out “religious freedom”, aka legalizing bigotry, is very costly. Nothing speaks to Republicans like money, and so here we have McCrory trying to have it both ways.

According to a statement, the new executive order is designed “to protect the privacy and equality of all North Carolinians. Executive Order 93 clarifies existing state law and provides new protections for North Carolina residents.”

Executive Order 93 does the following:
• Maintains common sense gender-specific restroom and locker room facilities in government buildings and schools
• Affirms the private sector’s right to establish its own restroom and locker room policies
• Affirms the private sector and local governments’ right to establish non-discrimination employment policies for its own employees
• Expands the state’s employment policy for state employees to cover sexual orientation and gender identity
• Seeks legislation to reinstate the right to sue in state court for discrimination
With this Executive Order, the State of North Carolina is now one of 24 states that have protections for sexual orientation and gender identity for its employees.

“After listening to people’s feedback for the past several weeks on this issue, I have come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of misinformation, misinterpretation, confusion, a lot of passion and frankly, selective outrage and hypocrisy, especially against the great state of North Carolina,” said Governor McCrory. “Based upon this feedback, I am taking action to affirm and improve the state’s commitment to privacy and equality.”

many corporations and businesses pulled out of North Carolina after the bathroom bigotry law was signed, with PayPal leading the way. It turns out that bigotry doesn’t pay.

So McCrory is still whining about the “selective outrage” against the great state of bigotry as if North Carolina is the victim here, but not so much that he isn’t going to allow private companies to do as they please. The government will still be bigoted, though. So hopefully that will appease the right wingers.

Sarah Jones

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