North Carolina state government is an embarrassment to democracy, freedom, liberty, and any concept of equality.

I have to admit, I didn’t much like the Charlotte City Council’s new law to open up public bathrooms to anyone at any time based on gender identification. Not, as I’ve heard some proponents of that city ordinance say, because I’m prejudiced against LGBT people by thinking they are sexual predators.

I don’t think that for a minute. I’m not prejudiced against LGBT people; I’m prejudiced against male perverts who would use the sexual identity law as a way to get into places where they could prey on women and girls without facing scrutiny. These sorts of perverts don’t necessarily engage in physical attacks, but in peeping tom kinds of things such as taking photographs and such.

The state’s House Bill 2, “AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR SINGLE SEX MULTIPLE OCCUPANCY BATHROOM AND CHANGING FACILITIES IN SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC AGENCIES AND TO CREATE STATEWIDE CONSISTENCY IN REGULATION OF EMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS,” goes well beyond making women’s bathrooms off limits to male perverts.

This law removes local governments from having any say in how towns or counties can govern themselves – putting all the power in Raleigh’s hands, and I think we all know how much Raleigh supports northeastern North Carolina.

I thought conservatives wanted decentralized government. Town government, county government, then state government. They certainly espouse that belief when talking states rights.

Apparently it only applies to being able to discriminate against certain populations. States should be able to discriminate against African Americans if they want, no matter what the federal government says. So now state government can discriminate against LGBT people even if local government says “no.”

So I guess conservatives in state government have the only say. Nobody else has a say. They’re free to discriminate against whomever they don’t like this week. Sounds a lot like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump – absolute, dictatorial control.

And they don’t even have to give potential rivals in state government to opportunity to know what’s being voted upon beforehand.

NC Senator Erica Smith-Ingram of District 3 (which includes Bertie, Hertford and Northampton counties) and District 5 NC House of Representatives member Howard Hunter III of Ahoskie both said they lacked adequate time to study House Bill 2 before the GOP members voted to approve it.

“The Republicans made this much more than just about transgender individuals in a public restroom,” Hunter said. “We had less than 30 minutes to study the bill; we didn’t receive this information in advance,” he said. “I was very concerned about some of the other language included in this bill, parts that I believe take away the rights of local government to govern. There was also some language about the Wage and Hour Act that I didn’t have time to completely wrap my head around, but again, they (Republicans) didn’t give us a lot of time to study it.”

This is no way a real government of and for the people should be run.

Both sides should have a say in crafting law so that the people’s will, all people, can be heard.

Passage of this law was an affront to liberty, democracy, and equality. It clearly was a display of dictatorial rule, which the once Great State of North Carolina has devolved into, thanks to the ultra-conservative GOP.

Let’s get our democracy back.

 

Keith Hoggard is a Staff Writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be contacted at keith.hoggard@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.