Excuse me if I can’t find any crocodile tears for former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who says his support for anti-LGBT HB2 last year is now making employers reluctant to hire him.
The former governor complained to Christian podcast WORLD that even though he’s left office, HB2 “has impacted me to this day, even after I left office. People are reluctant to hire me, because, ‘oh my gosh, he’s a bigot’ – which is the last thing I am.”
As folks know, HB2 struck down local nondiscrimination ordinances and requires transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate while they are in schools and other government facilities. The legislation has cost North Carolina millions and millions in lost revenue through cancelled conventions, business, sporting and music events.
He then went on to blame his current situation on liberal advocacy groups: “If you disagree with the politically correct thought police on this new definition of gender, you’re a bigot, you’re the worst of evil,” he said. “It’s almost as if I broke a law.”
Along the way, he took a swipe at transgender people saying, “You ask the doctor if it’s a boy or a girl; you don’t ask the baby.”
The North Carolina Democratic Party has no pity for the pious McCrory, either, issuing this statement:
“North Carolina has already lost hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity and thousands of jobs as a direct result of House Bill 2, but I guess we can start adding Gov. McCrory’s career to the total as well.”
North Carolina thankfully has a new governor as former State Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) was sworn in just after the stroke of midnight last night.
He replaces The Advocates‘ “Phobie of the Year,” now former Gov. Pat McCrory.
Although the competition was tough picking the biggest hater of 2016, McCrory wins the title for his atrocious support and passage of North Carolina’s anti-LGBT “bathroom bill,” HB2.
Here’s how The Advocate frames McCrory’s despicable stance:
Even as jobs left the state and performers canceled concerts and millions piled up in lost revenue, McCrory and Republicans refused to rethink what they passed in House Bill 2.
Lawmakers hadn’t approved a RFRA exactly. Instead, they passed a law banning any locality from including LGBT people in antidiscrimination ordinances. In other words, they wanted to ensure that discrimination against LGBT people remains legal no matter where you go in North Carolina. They also barred transgender people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity in any government building, without citing a single incident caused in North Carolina by letting transgender people use the bathroom of their choice.
McCrory owns responsibility for the law, having called a special session to pass it. But he also sued the Obama administration to make the case that there’s no legal basis for protecting transgender people.
Republicans sided heavily with McCrory, who was just so sure he’d win by demagoguing transgender people that he went on Meet the Press to make the case nationally. The state GOP senatorial committee launched a Stand With McCrory website that was basically a fan site for HB 2. McCrory actually ran a campaign ad touting his transphobia as a major selling point. He invented a story about how liberals supposedly want boys to shower with girls in a TV commercial ironically titled “Common Sense.” He even had transphobic bumper stickers printed up.
“You know, when we were raising average teacher pay, creating new jobs, and cutting taxes, other folks were actually pushing to make our schools allow boys to use the girls’ locker rooms and showers,” said McCrory. “Are we really talking about this? Does the desire to be politically correct outweigh our children’s privacy and safety? Not on my watch.”
And with that, North Carolinians voted him out of office.
Come election night, the folks of North Carolina decided they had seen enough business leave their state over the hateful legislation that McCrory championed.
He didn’t go quietly though. McCrory drew out the certification of the election results for weeks trying to toss the decision to the Republican controlled state legislature.
But to no avail.
Ever the sore loser, McCrory couldn’t help but take potshots at his critics on his way out the door.
He said HB2 likely played a major role in his election defeat, and he blamed the Charlotte City Council – which passed a nondiscrimination ordinance that prompted HB2 – as well as the LGBT advocacy groups that backed economic boycotts of the state. He called it a “manufactured crisis.”
“I wish I would have been successful in convincing Charlotte not to start this masquerade of an issue, that no doubt had an impact on my future election and on North Carolina in a very unfair way,” he says in the video, adding that he was “unsuccessful in convincing the legislature maybe not to overreact.”
Shady shenanigans going on in North Carolina as sore loser Gov. Pat McCrory called a special session for the Republican controlled state legislature.
The point of the session was to pass bills which would now limit the powers of the incoming Governor-elect Roy Cooper, a Democrat who defeated McCrory in a bitter campaign this fall.
McCrory spent weeks delaying the certification of the election trying to say there had been vote tampering and more. No evidence was found, and Cooper was declared the winner.
But, in the aftermath of that defeat, McCrory took a final slap against his opponent.
The bill McCrory signed on Friday merges the State Board of Elections and State Ethics Commission into one entity comprised equally of Democrats and Republicans. Previous state law would have allowed Cooper to put a majority of Democrats on the board, which sets the rules for the state’s notoriously burdensome balloting.
The measure also makes elections for appellate court judgeships partisan by requiring candidates to be listed on the ballot alongside their political party.
Protesters packed the halls of the General Assembly Friday as lawmakers voted on another bill that would require Senate confirmation for cabinet appointments. The state Senate voted to approve that measure Friday afternoon, sending it back to the state House for final consideration.
At least 16 people were arrested Friday, according to General Assembly police.
The series of measures were introduced in a surprise move Wednesday during a special session ostensibly called by the General Assembly to consider relief for Hurricane Matthew victims. Lawmakers did indeed approve a $201 million aid package earlier in the day, but then moved onto the legislation aimed at curbing the power of Cooper, who beat Republican McCrory last month by about 10,000 votes.
House Bill 17, which McCrory is expected to sign, legislates that Cooper’s cabinet picks must be approved by the GOP-controlled state Senate.
After weeks of stonewalling, North Carolina’s anti-LGBT Gov. Pat McCrory has conceded he lost his race for reelection to Democrat and current Attorney General Roy Cooper.
A divisive figure in North Carolina politics, McCrory’s loss can be credited to his support and passage of the state’s now infamously anti-LGBT legislation known as HB2.
The law stuck down all LGBT protections in the state by stating that, unless a certain class of people was officially recognized by the state, local municipalities could not enact their own protections.
This included barring transgender citizens from using public bathrooms which aligned with their gender identity.
HB2’s impact on North Carolina was vast with many corporations and events cancelled and moved to other states. The cost to the state has been estimated to be in the tens of millions.
Congratulations Governor-elect Roy Cooper!
JUST IN: North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory concedes gubernatorial race, calls for “smooth transition” to next administration.
In a video released by McCrory’s office he says, “I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken. And we now should do everything we can to support the 75th Governor of North Carolina Roy Cooper.”
It looks like anti-LGBT North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is going to need to face the reality that his days in the North Carolina state house are coming to an end.
And it couldn’t happen to a better guy. You’ll recall McCrory championed, signed and defended his state’s HB2, an anti-LGBT law which among other things prevents transgender folks from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.
Thanks to the law, the Tarheels state has lost millions in income as conventions, concerts and other events have cancelled over the discriminatory legislation.
Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Roy Cooper, refused to defend HB2, and currently has a lead of more than 10,000 votes in the race for the governorship.
Republican Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina gets more bad news today via the latest PPP poll showing him trailing Attorney General Roy Cooper by 5 points, thanks in part to McCrory’s unwavering support of anti-LGBT law, HB2.
For the first time this entire cycle PPP finds a clear leader in the race to be North Carolina’s next Governor: Roy Cooper. Cooper’s at 46% to 41% for Pat McCrory, with Libertarian Lon Cecil at 2%. When undecideds and Cecil voters are asked who they’d pick if they had to choose between Cooper and McCrory, Cooper’s lead ticks up to 50/43.
McCrory continues to be unpopular, with only 41% of voters approving of him to 49% who disapprove. This makes 39 months in a row we’ve found his approval rating under water. Voters are generally having a positive reaction as they’ve become more familiar with Cooper, with 40% of voters rating him positively to 32% who have a negative opinion.
The story in this race is Cooper’s strength with independent voters. He leads McCrory 44-33 with them in the full field, and 50-34 with them in the head to head. By contrast, McCrory defeated Walter Dalton by a 2:1 margin with independents in 2012. But they have largely soured on him with now only 36% approving of him to 49% who disapprove.
HB2 is causing McCrory big trouble as well. By a 20 point margin voters want to see it repealed- just 32% support keeping it on the books, to 52% who think it should be overturned. Among pivotal independent voters, there’s 56/29 support for repeal. There may be one simple reason HB2 is so unpopular – it’s a bill targeting LGBT people, yet only 19% of North Carolinians say they have a negative opinion of LGBT people, to 47% with a positive one and 34% who are indifferent. A bill cutting the rights of a group of people that only a small slice of the electorate has a problem with isn’t going to be very popular.
I have to comment on the “only 19% of North Carolinians say they have a negative opinion of LGBT people.” Isn’t it sad that almost one in five people in the state views LGBTs negatively and that can be characterized as “only?”
Robert Sepulveda Jr. of Logo TV’s Finding Prince Charming
Some news stories you may have missed:
• Finding Prince Charming‘s Robert Sepulveda Jr. tells People.com he became a sex worker in his 20s because “he had no other choice.” Btw – I have no problem with folks being sex workers. Just saying…
• North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is trailing his Democratic challenger Attorney General Roy Cooper by an average of 3.6 points thanks to anti-LGBT “bathroom law” HB2.
• Playboy Playmate Dani Mathers faces up to six months in jail for taking a pic of a naked 70 year old woman at her gym in an attempt to “body shame” the woman. Good.
• With Democratic White House contender Hillary Clinton showing up at the back of her campaign plane to chat with reporters two days in a row, Repub Donald Trump is now rethinking his “blacklisting” of certain press outlets.
• Apple’s Twitter account jumped the gun on the iPhone 7 roll-out this morning as CEO Tim Cook was in the middle of introducing the new shiny new toy. Watch the quick recap video below for details.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory issued this angry statement in response to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals denial to rehear a case regarding transgender rights decided in April.
“School systems throughout our nation should be allowed to make sensible accommodations for students whose gender identity conflicts with their own physical anatomy. Yet the extreme Obama courts and administration deny this common sense flexibility at the expense of privacy for millions of boys and girls in our schools’ restrooms, locker room and shower facilities.
“It’s unfortunate that our attorney general Roy Cooper didn’t join us to pretect the expectation of privacy for our children.
“As Judge Niemeyer notes in his opinion, ‘…they can override these provisions by redefining sex to mean how any given person identifies himself or her self at any given time, thereby, of necessity, denying all affected persons the dignity and freedom of bodily privacy.’
“He went on to say, and I agree, ‘…the momentous nature of this issue deserves an open road to the Supreme Court to seek the Court’s controlling construction of Title IX for national application.’
“Alternatively, the U.S. Congress could take action to clarify the scope of federal anti-discrimination laws so there is consistent application across our country.”
The original case was brought by a transgender student, Gavin Grimm, against the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia, which enacted a policy restricting students to restrooms aligned with their “biological gender.,” and not their gender identity.
Grimm said in a statement, “Now that the Fourth Circuit’s decision is final, I hope my school board will finally do the right thing and let me go back to using the boys’ restroom. Transgender kids should not have to sue their own school boards just for the ability to use the same restrooms as everyone else.”
Because the ruling was issued by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and North Carolina is subject to rulings of the 4th, North Carolina may well see it’s hateful HB2 go down.
I fully expect this case to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Embattled North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory had a not-so-successful appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press this morning where he was questioned about the passage of his state’s anti-LGBT legislation, HB2.
Chuck Todd began with this: “Any estimates we have of lost revenue so far, we have come up with calculated, conservative calculations, $39.7 million, $186 million perhaps in revenue, and some have suggested billions in lost revenue. All of this now, do you have regrets signing this law?”
Ouch.
Among other “interesting” remarks, McCrory told Chuck Todd that he has been thanked by citizens at an “African-American buffet restaurant,’ and he now find the “Human Resources Commission” (the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign) to be “more powerful” than the NRA.
McCrory also erroneously said that no one had talking about transgender/gender identity issues until last year’s Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. That, of course, is false since over 200 local municipalities (including 19 states) have had gender identity protections for some time now.
Todd began by highlighting how much the law has already hurt the Tar Heel state economically, noting that 160 companies have called for the law’s repeal. “Bloomberg, Capital One, United Airlines, Williams-Sonoma — that’s just on Friday,” he observed, adding that the law has cost state that at least $39.7 million in lost revenue already. He asked McCrory if he has any regrets about signing the law.
McCrory responded that he would “always call out government overreach,” like Charlotte’s law, blaming “the left” for passing a mandate on “every private sector employer” in the city. He then boasted that while the business community has criticized him, people at “an African American buffet restaurant” in the small city of Hamlet, NC had thanked him protecting them.
