By Liam Sherman, Staff Writer
House Bill Two (HB2), the controversial North Carolina law nicknamed the “bathroom bill”, is still in place after a failed attempt to repeal the law. This could mean further economic consequences for N.C.
“I think HB2 like ObamaCare has been a conflicting issue on both sides. I think it may be hard to repeal because there are many ideas that… should be repealed but also there are ideas that the republicans like and as the republicans do have control of the General Assembly and the N.C. Senate it’s going to be very hard to repeal HB2,” sophomore Isaac Anthony said.
HB2 is a law that along with making people use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate. It limits the ways a person can sue for discrimination based on sexual or gender identity. This law has caused significant economic impacts in N.C. as businesses have canceled expansions into N.C. The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) even announced their moving of 15 championships out of the state. According to Buisnessinsider.com there were nearly 400 million dollars of ecconomic losses.
The law was passed in response to Charlotte passing a non-discrimination ordinance that protected the rights of LGBTQ people. HB2 stopped these protections and made it so city ordinances couldn’t be passed to give these protections.
After the economic damages suffered by North Carolina had occurred, Charlotte and the state senate made a deal that the ordinance and law would be repealed. Charlotte repealed its ordinance, but the senate did not repeal the law.
“I think it’s a shame,” Calculus and Math 3 teacher Joy Barnes-Griffith said.
“There was an agreement among everybody. That’s why we called a special session,” N.C. Governor Roy Cooper said, according to CNN. “They said they had the votes as long as we had the Democrats. We got the Charlotte City Council to take this step, something they didn’t particularly want to take. … What happened is they broke the deal.”
The senate Republicans during deliberations said that they would only vote to repeal the law if a cooling off period where cities couldn’t pass their own non discrimination ordinances was implemented. This caused enough people to vote against the bill that it didn’t pass. Many people were very frustrated as the Charlotte ordinance is still repealed, while the bill isn’t.
“I think is really wrong. When I heard that I was quite disgusted at first because I feel like if you make a deal you have to follow through on it,” Anthony said.
HB2 is still highly controversial and remains unrepealed in N.C. The state of New York even banned non essential state travel to N.C. Despite the controversy arguments about these issues are a key part of the democratic process.
Photo from WITN