Could the Carolina Comeback fall victim to the Carolina Throwback?
The former catchphrase refers to the Tar Heel State’s economic recovery, for which Gov. Pat McCrory and Republican legislative leaders claim credit. The latter is what we’ll call this week’s law targeting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people for discrimination.
It’s a throwback to the dark days of Jim Crow and state-sanctioned prejudice, and it could very well derail North Carolina’s efforts to court cutting-edge companies, expand jobs and encourage economic growth.
Big-name employers have denounced the General Assembly’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, which not only overrides a Charlotte city ordinance ensuring that transgender people can use the restroom matching their gender identity, but rolls back nondiscrimination protections for LGBT residents statewide.
American Airlines, Apple, Bayer, Bank of America, Biogen, Dow Chemical, IBM, Wells Fargo, PayPal and Red Hat have condemned the law. The NBA hinted it may choose not to hold the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte. The NCAA could move basketball tournaments planned in Charlotte and Greensboro.
Lest these be seen as empty threats, look to Georgia, where Disney has vowed to stop shooting the Marvel film franchise if Gov. Nathan Deal signs an anti-LGBT bill. That state stands to lose $2 billion or more in direct economic investment.
This shortsighted law will cost North Carolina a great deal more than the $42,000 expense of Wednesday’s special session, during which GOP lawmakers rammed through a hastily written bill in a single day.
We will lose new jobs. We will be overlooked for corporate investment and expansion. Sports leagues, conferences and event planners will bypass our state.
The law’s fiercest defenders, including the N.C. Values Coalition, have adopted a defiant anti-business stance, decrying “corporate bullying” and criticizing the companies for weighing in on public policy that affects their North Carolina workforce. Dimwitted demagogues have all but called the companies’ bluff, daring them to flee the state in droves.
Social conservatives miss the mark when they brand the corporations as radically liberal. Big business is essentially libertarian — CEOs want economic freedom, low taxes and reduced regulatory burdens, but they also value diversity and individual rights.
Lawmakers bent on advancing repressive social rules must realize they are out of step with job creators. They can no longer credibly call themselves pro-business and pro-growth. Touting those self-applied labels after this fiasco is disingenuous.
This legislative hissy fit started because some North Carolinians are uncomfortable with the notion of transgender people using public restrooms that don’t match their current biological sex.
The law McCrory signed Wednesday will have little practical effect where that’s concerned. It requires government to provide sex-segregated restrooms, but it doesn’t establish state potty police. It provides no enforcement mechanism and won’t stop people from choosing the bathroom that matches their expressed gender, i.e., their outward appearance.
What it does is rewrite all nondiscrimination laws in North Carolina. It prevents discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap, but it notably excludes sexual orientation and gender identity, which are specified in many local government policies. The new state law supersedes those.
Continuing down this road of big-government meddling and moralistic social engineering will make North Carolina less competitive in the 21st-century American economy. If our legislators really want to be business-friendly, they will listen to the chorus of corporate criticism and fix this mistake.