New York Times Editorial Board: Desperate Pat McCrory Has Got Some Nerve With His Ignorant “Compromise”

BOOM. From the editorial board of the New York Times:

Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina has some nerve. Alarmed by the rising financial fallout from the discriminatory law he and Republican lawmakers hastily passed in March to bar transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity, the governor seemed desperate for an off-ramp last week.

On Friday, he offered to convene a special legislative session to repeal the law, which in addition to policing restroom use nullified local laws that protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination. There is a catch, however. Mr. McCrory insists that he will not support repeal unless Charlotte revokes the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance, enacted in February, which Republicans used as a reason to pass the now infamous state statute known as H.B. 2.

It was a desperate move by Mr. McCrory, who appears likely to lose his re-election bid in November, in large part for championing a measure based on the specious notion that transgender people are sexual predators.

It’s not too late for Mr. McCrory to come to his senses and take the only way out — admit ignorance and error and repeal the law. While he and lawmakers are at it, they can acknowledge that no one has been made safer by preventing transgender people from using appropriate public restrooms, the ostensible reason for passing the law.

The rule was never enforceable, since police officers can’t reasonably be required to inspect people’s genitals outside bathroom stalls. The point of the law was to harm and humiliate L.G.B.T. citizens, and for that all North Carolinians are having to pay an ever growing price.

And there’s this from the Charlotte Observer:



Officials of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign disputed Gov. Pat McCrory’s description of a meeting with them about House Bill 2 earlier this year. Speaking to the Charlotte Rotary Tuesday, the governor said HRC President Chad Griffin had promised to make North Carolina an example.

“He said, Governor, I’m going to make North Carolina the epicenter of the transgender bathroom movement in the United States of America,” McCrory recounted. “And once I finish with North Carolina, I’m going to move to all the states of the United States.” McCrory also said Griffin told him, “We’re going after you.”

In a statement, Griffin and two other LGBT leaders who attended the meeting said McCrory “has continued to falsely characterize our conversation.”

“North Carolinians deserve better,” they said. “We told the governor that if he didn’t fix the disaster he created, that he alone would be responsible for tarnishing the reputation of the state and killing jobs.… Speaking to the Rotary Club … Gov. McCrory offered an entirely fictional account of the meeting and HRC President Chad Griffin’s remarks.”