North Carolina Gov wants Congress to gut Civil Rights Act over anti-trans bathroom law
The Governor of North Carolina has said the US Congress needs to review the whole 1964 Civil Rights Act, as he doesn’t like the way it is being used to condemn his state’s new anti-LGBT law.
The Governor spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper, accusing Democrats of starting the battle over HB2, as the city passed an ordinance to allow trans students to use a gender-appropriate bathroom.
“I think that this was an argument that we didn’t need to have,” McCrory argued.
“But this is an agenda by the far left. And for some reason, the national media is saying the far right brought this up. I had no interest in this subject.”
“But the Justice Department is basically making a civil rights claim that every private sector employer in the US and every university in the United States must have gender expression or gender identity bathroom choices for individuals,” McCrory went on.
When Tapper said that trans kids “have a very difficult time fitting in, they have very high suicide rates,” McCrory argued for “segregated” bathrooms to be used by trans kids in special circumstances.
“But now the Civil Right Division of the U.S. Justice Department has deemed those types of arrangements to be discriminatory,” he added.
When Tapper challenged the Governor on his assertion that he is “sensitive to a child’s needs”, but making “that child’s life much more difficult”, McCrory said: “I’m also worried about the other kids… There’s an expectation of privacy for the other girls or other boys.”
“Can you imagine the potential problem there?” he continued. “And so we need to look through these problems and not throw hand grenades at these issues because it’s a new sensitive issue on all sides, for families, for young girls and boys, and for the transgender population.”
“But to have the Justice Department come out with a massive interpretation of the Civil Rights Act for every employer in the United States now is something that I think need clarification by the federal courts.”
Going on, he said the US Congress should be possibly altering the Civil Rights Act.
“I think there’s a time where the Republicans and the Democrats in this Congress need to revisit the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and revisit all this issue. Because these are complex issues and North Carolina for whatever reason politically has become the target by the left on this agenda.”
The US Justice Department sued the state of North Carolina on Monday, asking a federal court to rule that the law violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Department said the state should stop enforcing HB2.
The Attorney General Loretta Lynch also threatened to withhold federal funding to the University of North Carolina system, which could be as much as $4.8 billion.
In response, Governor McCrory filed his own desperate lawsuit against the federal government yesterday.
In it, he named Ms Lynch, the head of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta and the Justice Department.
“We’re taking the Obama admin to court,” he wrote.
“They’re bypassing Congress, attempting to rewrite law & policies for the whole country, not just NC.
“Our lawsuit seeks to ensure that NC continues to receive federal funding until the courts clarify federal law & resolve this national issue.”
