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Letters to the Editor

Government was right on HB2 bathroom bill

N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory announces on May 9, 2016, that he has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to determine that the controversial House Bill 2 is not illegally discriminatory. He said, "The Obama administration is bypassing Congress by attempting to rewrite the law and set restroom policies for public and private employers across the country, not just North Carolina."
N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory announces on May 9, 2016, that he has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to determine that the controversial House Bill 2 is not illegally discriminatory. He said, "The Obama administration is bypassing Congress by attempting to rewrite the law and set restroom policies for public and private employers across the country, not just North Carolina." Chuck Liddy The News & Observer

While I agree with James Troxler that public restroom activity was, generally speaking, not on anybody's radar prior to North Carolina's passing of its bigoted legislation known as the "HB2 bathroom bill," neither was it on the government's radar.

But North Carolina did decide to, unfortunately, make it an issue and, then, voted to enact the HB2 bill back in March, thereby being in direct violation of the civil rights of the transgender population.

Therefore, it is not "government's unconstitutional intrusion," as he put it but, on the contrary, government's sworn duty to uphold our constitutional laws — in this case, specifically, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, in protecting the rights of this very disenfranchised group of individuals. How he tied this issue to his accusations of government tyranny and intrusion is beyond me. Government was well within its rights to intervene on this very blatantly discriminatory piece of legislation.

Chrystal Lee

Bradenton

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 3:41 PM with the headline "Government was right on HB2 bathroom bill."

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