North Carolina County Protects Gay Workers

[wakeme2008]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Gay-Nondiscrimination.html?

May 18, 2005
North Carolina County Protects Gay Workers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 6:50 a.m. ET

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Commissioners in North Carolina's most populous county voted to add ''sexual orientation'' to its nondiscrimination policy despite vehement objections from Republicans.

The new policy means Mecklenburg County cannot discriminate in hiring and personnel decisions on the basis of sexual orientation, in addition to race, color, sex, religion, national origin and age. The change was approved 6-3 on Tuesday.

<cut>
ther North Carolina counties and cities have passed similar anti-discrimination policies, and two counties -- Durham and Orange -- offer domestic partner benefits.

..at little more at link.....

Makes me wonder why NC is a RED state...

[TahitiNut]

1. The key words are "most populous county" ... i.e. "blue"

Sociopathic Reichbots tend to isolate themselves in areas of low population density. North Carolina has Research Triangle and migrants from the rust belt. Where people have more contact and interaction with one another, including access to more than a single pulpit-stomping point of view, they tend to become more liberal.

[LostinVA]

5. The Charlotte area is soooooooo not blue

Less red than it used to be, but absolutely NOT blue. The Mecklenburg County area is definitely not Carrboro/Chapel Hill or Asheville. Or even Greensboro.

What my mom (who lives near there) thinks: alot of companies have heir HQs there, and have had their images hurt by alot of anti-gay pronouncements by the local County Commissioners *ie banning "Angels in America," etc.). My dad is friends with someone on the Chamber of Commerce's board, and says they've been having fits about this for years.

[cap]

8. banks are recruiting financial analysts and computer folks

from NYC -- that's why they want the anti-discrimination law. They need to seem friendlier so that they can get the talent to relocate.

[MountainLaurel]

13. Ever seen

The Mary Kay Church of Christ, a.k.a., the big pink church that sort of looks like a crown?

When my friend Kel lived in Charlotte, whenever someone visited from out of town she'd drive them by it just to see the :wtf: expressions on their faces.

[LostinVA]

22. Hahaha! I know

I lived in NC from 1982-2000, and my family and partner's family still lives there. The Charlotte area is interesting: it's striving to be such a big sophisticated business center, which is hard to do when a bunch of homophobe yokels are still wanting to run things like it was 40 years ago.... or even 20!

Good for Mecklenberg County!

And yeah, I've seen the Mary Kay Church!

[siliconefreak]

48. exactly

Richard Florida is right. If cities and regions want to expand and attract the best and the brightest from around the world, they must embrace diversity.

If you don't know who Richard Florida is, you can learn more about him and his writings at www.creativeclass.org

[youspeakmylanguage]

40. Rae Carruth had his pregnant girlfriend shot...

..right down the road from that church. Add that to your tour guide. ;-)

[MountainLaurel]

42. My friend has since moved

But her roommate at the time could give that tour, as he was working as a nurse in the hospital the night she was brought in.

[wildeyed]

19. There are certainly alot of 'business conservative' types in

Charlotte. Banks are really important to the local economy, so it stands to reason that their interests are considered. And the banks don't like to be embarrassed by the mouth breathers.

But in the final analysis, there are more Democrat than Repubs in Mecklenburg. What it comes down to is turnout. When dems vote, dems win. When dems are lazy and don't show up at the polls, the repubs make up ground.

This past election, there were no huge issues motivating the business community, yet dems won three out of three at-large county commissioner seats. The base was energized by the presidential race and some local repugs foolishly raised the ire of the black community. Dems voted an dems won big. It had nothing to do with the chamber of commerce. So give us a little more credit. We are not all a bunch of business bots waiting for direction from the CEO's.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

2. I'm actually surprised about Mecklenburg Co.

where Charlotte is. I absolutely despise Charlotte (after all, it's the second capital of banking) and most of the worst talibornagains and crazy republicans I ever met were from the Charlotte area.

It's somewhat a redder city than, say, Chapel Hill or Durham or Raleigh.

[wildeyed]

4. Well most of the really arrogant people I know come from NYC.

Just sayin'. :sarcasm:

[TalkingDog]

6. It is considered the buckle of the Bible Belt

with the highest percentage of church attendees in the country.

The average percentage of church-goers who attend every Sunday nationwide is about 22%. In Charlotte it's closer to 50%.

That info is from a study out around 5 years ago. It may have changed somewhat since then.

[youspeakmylanguage]

37. The buckle of the bible belt is Lynchburg or Virginia Beach, VA

Falwell rules Lynchburg and Robertson's ministry rules VA Beach. In both towns the fundies have much more political and social influence than in Charlotte. In fact I believe Virginia as a whole is much more conservative and fundie-controlled than NC, but people assume since it's to the north and cradles Washington DC, it must be relatively more civilized.

[youspeakmylanguage]

35. ROFL. Yep, the crazy people sure aren't in NYC!

:rofl:

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Go Red Sox!

[wildeyed]

3. Excellent!

I haven't gone out to get the paper yet (I am in Charlotte). I knew they were working on this, but I didn't know it would happen so fast :)

[struggle4progress]

7. Conservative Charlotte! Who'd athunk it? eom

[Mist]

10. I'm surprised too - Charlotte and surrounding area is fairly red. n/t

[youspeakmylanguage]

36. The "surrounding area" of Chapel Hill is scarlet...

...but CH is a wonderful town.

[LostinVA]

38. Ultra-Scarlet n/t

[discordian]

9. This place is wing-nut central

Lots of repuglicans here, lots of demos and indies as well. Charlotte has been slowly invaded by us yankees for the past decade or two. The people here with money (upper middle class and higher), are primarily from somewhere else. In my group at work, about 50-80 people (depends on the week and what re-org we're in), in IT, we are half foreign (England, China and India), and a quarter of us moved here from Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. I think only one or two of us are of local origin. So there are lots of imported values here and it drives the bible-thumpin locals absolutely nuts.

[wildeyed]

11. That is not entirely true.

Most of the community activist I know are natives. Alot of the energy that propelled these commissioners into office came from the black community. Certainly there were plenty of transplants who were energized and voting for Kerry, but there are also many home grown voters who vote blue.

[supernova]

14. Haven't met many from Meyers Park have you?

The people here with money (upper middle class and higher), are primarily from somewhere else.

Yeah. Right. The old money is there, darling. You're too nouveau riche to see it.

[carolinayellowdog]

12. Carolina blue, Carolina red

Hey,

There are some misconceptions about NC political demography in this thread. Here's a revision of something I posted Monday in another thread regarding which counties went blue and red in 2004. The biggest patch of blue counties is in the rural northeast:

Warren County, where I live part-time, gave over 2/3 of its votes to Kerry. Other counties in the region that went blue are Halifax, Northampton, Hertford, Bertie, Vance, Edgecombe, Washington, and Pasquotank. The only contiguous area of blue counties that comes close to us in size is Lumbee Indian country, Robeson County and the neighboring Scotland, Richmond, and Hoke. In the midst of the sea of red in the Piedmont are two extremely blue counties, Orange and Durham, and two barely blue ones, Guilford and Mecklenburg. Despite Asheville's progressivism, neither Buncombe nor any other western county went blue.

CYD
on edit-- here's the list by county

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/PresidentialByCounty.aspx?oi=P&rti=G&sp=NC&tf=l

[supernova]

15. Thanks for that carolinayellowdog

Very cool.

As with elsewhere, NC is more "purple" than strictly blue or red.

[DemoTex]

17. My county in the NC mountains, Transylvania, is as red as bat's blood.

Know what I mean?

[supernova]

18. Nah, I couldn't possibly know what you're talking about

Me, with my Orange county orange clay feet. :crazy:

[Lex]

20. The blue counties of Orange and Durham certainly have more people

than all of the contiguous blue counties in the northeast of the state.

In fact, if we turned out big numbers of Dems in Durham, Orange, Wake, and Mecklenburg, we could turn the state blue (given that we have those counties in the northeast too).

That was part of the strategy in 2004.

John Edwards was elected from NC so it's not so red all the time.

[LostinVA]

24. I am VERY surprised (and heartened) about the Eastern

counties going blue, especially Halifax, Vance, and Washington. Some of the most intolerant right wingers I've ever met have been from that part of the state (and the extreme west). Yay! Go Old North State! Let's make you at elast purple!

[carolinayellowdog]

27. Large minority populations

skew numbers in the blue direction. I see unconscious, implicit racism behind the statements that urban=blue and rural=red in NC. It's as if African American and Native people *just don't count* when people are repeating this falsehood. Northeast NC has one of the safest blue Congressional districts in the nation, with a very low population density.

There's an old saying from the Piedmont to the effect that the rest of NC would be well served if everything east of the Fall Line were sawed off and drifted out to sea. (Wonder who said that? It *would* bring the beach close to Raleigh.) Well, if that happened, NC would be red for eternity whereas East Carolina Island would be one of the bluest states.

[LostinVA]

28. Trust me, I'm not slamming rural people only being red

I lived in Wilmington, NC, for several years. OMG. It was such a weird place: the liberal Hollywood people (plus some locals), versus some horribly intolerant locals, with a nice dash of Punk and Goth locals. And Greensboro was very liberal and very Conservative. I lived there for almost ten years. I've just never thought about it being blue, because I've had such bad experiences with some white people from that area. I've never realized the minority population in that part of the state was so large. Hey,. I DO know about the Lumbees! I lived in FayetteNam for a while.

[youspeakmylanguage]

41. FayetteNam

...the as*hole of the Carolinas.

[LostinVA]

43. Tell me about it -- a horrible town

I feel so sorry for people who are from there. There are/were some wonderful neighborhoods. It's much worse now than it was even 20 years ago.

[supernova]

16. Hooray for Mecklenburg County!

:D

It's very preppy, and button down, but Parks Helms gets the job done.:-)

[Lex]

21. When I think of Charlotte, I think of NASCAR.

.
Charlotte is so much more red than Durham and Orange counties.\

I'm really impressed with them passing this protection measure! Woo Hoo!

[youspeakmylanguage]

25. When I think of Durham I think crime, Dookie, and Pastor Steve Winter...

Search Google Groups if you don't know the good Pastor Winter.

[Lex]

26. People always say Durham = crime, but there's a good argument that's

just a racial bias. Durham has a high population of African Americans and people in surrounding counties think that means crime.

The statistics don't bear out the "high crime" thing.

[youspeakmylanguage]

29. I haven't seen statistics - I just go by what people from Durham have said

...in the past and those people weren't racists, so I assumed their accounts were racially-neutral. Do you have statistics on hand?

A white upper-middle-class kid from Durham I knew in college had to explain what the phrase "hittin' the stem" meant in relation to smoking crack cocaine.

[Lex]

30. "Durham’s crime is below average"

REALITY: Durham’s crime is below average for a cohort of 9 Southeast and 28 national communities of similar size and makeup. Durham’s crime rate today is lower than Raleigh’s when it was Durham’s size.

http://www.imakenews.com/eletra/mod_print_view.cfm?this_id=193247&u=durhamcvb

[youspeakmylanguage]

31. OK, I was wrong...

I guess it's from "hittin' the stems" too much.

:dunce:

[youspeakmylanguage]

23. Charlotte in a nutshell...

I've lived in Charlotte for most of my life. The city has grown and thrived because of transplants from other places, mainly from the northeast. Charlotte is much more politically diverse than the rest of the Carolinas, with the exception of a few college towns. The rest of North and South Carolina deeply despise Charlotte because of this and the native locals in Charlotte deeply resent the transplants and their "librul" politics. There are less conflicts than you might think, though, mainly because the transplants are often managers and owners of businesses while southern workers are famously non-union and docile. Hence NC is still very red while Charlotte is growing more and more purple.

As far as church attendance goes, I'm an agnostic from a third-generation atheist family and we have very few issues with fundies. I had a mormon (very rare in NC) tell me in high school that I was going to hell and there was a furniture store owner that hinted he would offer us a better deal on a sofa if he knew what church my father attended, but beyond that, there have been no other problems.

As far as racists go, I know three of them personally. One is from Pittsburgh and two are from Brooklyn.

I also know some gay people who didn't particularly like Charlotte (lack of good gay clubs and a cohesive community) but also didn't have any horrendous experiences here, either.

The weather is nice and the business climate is thriving. Traffic isn't much of a problem and cost of living is relatively low. Sprawl, smog, and crime are problems. There is a raving wingnut on the local AM station, but then bright-blue California has Michael "Savage" Weiner, so you can't really hold that against us.

Anyway, this is a great step forward for us. Bravo Charlotte!

[Mark Williams]

45. I'm also in Charlotte

I'm also in Charlotte and I completley agree with your description. I especially agree with this:

There is a raving wingnut on the local AM station

[wildeyed]

46. Hi Mark Williams

Welcome to DU! :toast:

[Mark Williams]

49. Thanks

I've been reading for a VERY long time but I finally decided that it was time to get a username and start contributing. It is amazing to see how much great content is on these boards!

[wildeyed]

51. Watch out, it is addictive!

Huge chunks of my life have been eaten up by this board. But I guess it is better than watching TV, which is probably what I would be doing if I wasn't posting here.

[youspeakmylanguage]

50. Everybody loves Jason Lewis!

[lies and propaganda]

32. good job NC!

and for teh record, I wonder why most states are Red? They dont get dick in return.

[davidinalameda]

33. how many seconds before this is challenged

5
4
3
2
1

BUZZ-law suit!

[youspeakmylanguage]

34. I don't think they can challenge it...

...possibly in the state courts, but it sounds like a sure-fire loser of a lawsuit to me.

[LostinVA]

39. I don't think they can sue about this

But they could do a voter referendum.

[wildeyed]

44. Here is a link to the Charlotte Observer story.

Democrats who voted for the change said it was an overdue statement of tolerance. But Republican members predicted a backlash at next year's election, and at least one -- county commissioner Bill James -- said the board's action went against God.

snip...

County commissioner Wilhelmenia Rembert, a Democrat, said she regretted that the item was on the agenda because "a human right to be treated as a person of dignity and worth should not be debated."

And in what most took to be an allusion to James -- who has sent out several e-mails describing Democratic commissioners as endorsing perversity and sexual deviancy -- she said someone fixated on the sexual act could be coping with unresolved issues.

"I suggest seeking services, seeking counseling, seeking help," she said.

snip....

Helms said Republicans' reaction to the agenda item showed why it was needed.

"This is to say who we are," he said. "This is what we believe."

:yourock:

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/politics/11672757.htm

[CRK7376]

47. Way to Go

Mecklenberg County! Although I'm not from Charlotte, I'm pleased they are this supportive of basic human rights.....