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UNC Law Professor nails it in Op/Ed: The true motive for HB2 isn’t safety, it is hostility for LGBT
Two developments give the lie to statements that House Bill 2 provides “common sense” safety protections for women and young girls.
First, an opinion issued by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a transgender boy to challenge his school board’s policy excluding him from the boys’ bathroom. In determining that the federal law known as Title IX requires such access, the court rejected the “amorphous safety concerns” raised by the board. The court observed that no evidence whatsoever showed that the child’s “use of the boys’ restroom creates a safety issue.”
Second, more than 250 anti-sexual assault and domestic violence groups joined a statement challenging HB2’s safety justifications. In the statement’s words, “As rape crisis centers, shelters, and other service providers who work each and every day to meet the needs of all survivors and reduce sexual assault and domestic violence throughout society, we speak from experience and expertise when we state that these claims are false.”
<snip>
If HB2 doesn’t solve a safety problem, why pass it? There’s no secret that its supporters come not from community advocates against sexual violence but instead from the same folks who opposed same-sex marriage, supported the law allowing magistrates to exempt themselves from marrying same-sex couples, who believe that LGBT status is immoral and who fought passage of a 2009 law protecting LGBT students from bullying. Its supporters have made plain that they don’t like LGBT folks, they view them as aberrant and they really don’t like laws that protect them.
<snip>
Strip HB2 of its nonsensical safety justification, and the only rationale that remains for its bathroom provisions (and for much of the rest of the bill) is disapproval of LGBT persons generally and transgender persons in particular. Not only does that make HB2 bad legislation, which no legislature charged with serving the interests of all its citizens should have passed, it makes it unconstitutional.
First, an opinion issued by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a transgender boy to challenge his school board’s policy excluding him from the boys’ bathroom. In determining that the federal law known as Title IX requires such access, the court rejected the “amorphous safety concerns” raised by the board. The court observed that no evidence whatsoever showed that the child’s “use of the boys’ restroom creates a safety issue.”
Second, more than 250 anti-sexual assault and domestic violence groups joined a statement challenging HB2’s safety justifications. In the statement’s words, “As rape crisis centers, shelters, and other service providers who work each and every day to meet the needs of all survivors and reduce sexual assault and domestic violence throughout society, we speak from experience and expertise when we state that these claims are false.”
<snip>
If HB2 doesn’t solve a safety problem, why pass it? There’s no secret that its supporters come not from community advocates against sexual violence but instead from the same folks who opposed same-sex marriage, supported the law allowing magistrates to exempt themselves from marrying same-sex couples, who believe that LGBT status is immoral and who fought passage of a 2009 law protecting LGBT students from bullying. Its supporters have made plain that they don’t like LGBT folks, they view them as aberrant and they really don’t like laws that protect them.
<snip>
Strip HB2 of its nonsensical safety justification, and the only rationale that remains for its bathroom provisions (and for much of the rest of the bill) is disapproval of LGBT persons generally and transgender persons in particular. Not only does that make HB2 bad legislation, which no legislature charged with serving the interests of all its citizens should have passed, it makes it unconstitutional.
Read the full Op/Ed piece here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article74033802.html
