ALABAMA: Small Town Repeals Anti-Transgender Bathroom Law After Threats From ACLU And SPLC

AL.com reports:

The Oxford City Council today voted 3-2 to rescind its controversial public restroom ordinance, a little more than a week after it was passed.

Councilmembers Charlotte Hubbard, Phil Gardner and Mike Henderson voted to rescind the ordinance, while Council President Steven Waits and Councilman Chris Spurlin voted to keep it.

The council was able to reconsider the ordinance, Hubbard said, because it had not yet been signed by Mayor Leon Smith, who is ill.

Last week, Oxford’s city council made it a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine or six months in jail to use a bathroom opposite the person’s biological sex at birth. The ordinance came in response to a change is policy by national chain Target.

Waits, citing threatening legal challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union, said he has always expected a challenge. He went on to speak of a fear campaign being waged by the ordinance’s critics, saying again the city cannot be concerned with “.3 percent of the population.”

“I’m not impressed,” he said. “Did anyone really think the threat of legal action would not come up?”

From the SPLC:

“The Oxford City Council did the right thing by recalling its discriminatory ordinance,” said Chinyere Ezie, staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “We are pleased the council members came to the conclusion that nobody should be criminalized simply for using the restroom.”