Heat without reason
Published March 24, 2016
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, March 23, 2016.
Today’s special legislation session is fueled by red-hot emotion. The public should demand cool reason instead.
Lawmakers clamoring to overturn a Charlotte nondiscrimination ordinance say they must act immediately for the sake of public safety. If transgender men are allowed to use women’s bathrooms, girls and women will be at risk, they say. They’re all but equating this small population with sex offenders and pedophiles.
If that’s their justification for taking such extreme action, they should back it up with facts. How have these dangers impacted residents of cities where similar ordinances have been in place for years? They should demonstrate with solid evidence that they aren’t stirring up baseless fear but are protecting the people of Charlotte from a known, quantified threat.
Of course, this debate has already been aired in Charlotte over the course of a year or more. The ordinance was an election issue last fall. Three of the top four vote-getters staked out positions in favor. The people of Charlotte, or most of them, were not worried about transgender sexual predators stalking children in bathrooms.
These voters must be the “political correctness mob” decried by Senate leader Phil Berger from Eden, population 15,000. House Speaker Tim Moore, from Kings Mountain, population 10,000, says it’s his job to “correct this radical course” taken by the state’s largest city.
And, not to miss an opportunity, the legislature might rein in other city initiatives it doesn’t like, such as living wage ordinances. It aims to enforce “uniformity” across the state, by which it means dragging the most successful cities to the lowest common denominator.
This caused Gov. Pat McCrory, an instigator of the anti-Charlotte effort, to back away at the last minute. He declined Monday to call for the special session, which legislators were convening on their own authority, because of its suddenly broader agenda. We’ll see where he stands when this broader legislation lands on his desk for his signature.
The Charlotte measure, which lets transgender people use public and business restrooms of their choice, is easily exploited. Transgender people aren’t well understood. Few of us may know or think about what facilities they use now. If we’re not aware, perhaps they don’t pose much of a problem to anyone.
Details like that, and facts, seem to be less important than the political opportunity legislators have manufactured. Emotional issues can divert attention from a sluggish economy or inadequate school funding. They provide an excuse to revoke progressive policies enacted by other cities — with no warning that the attacks are coming and therefore no chance to counter them with public opinion.
In recent years, the Republican legislature has exerted the power of the state over local governments time after time. It seems to resent North Carolina’s most progressive cities. Today brings the latest instance. The effort is misguided and wasteful.
March 24, 2016 at 10:30 am
Richard L Bunce says:
State Chartered Municipal Corporations are the creation of the State Legislature and are endowed with a very limited set of powers in State Statute and their specific charters. For far too long the State Legislature has ignored their responsibility in reigning in their municipal creations abuses of powers they were given and assumptions of power they were never given. It is good to see the Legislature take these small steps but much more is to be done and certainly on far more important issues.
As for this specific issue... anyone who is building or remodeling a site that will be considered as a public accomodation should take note and provide single user sink/toilet spaces with a simple label on the door of "Restroom". Works just fine for hundreds of millions of private residences in the US.
As for the existing facilities instead of gender (man/woman/other) try sex (male/female/other)... at least you have have an objective not subjective standard should you end up in court.
