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Ten hours.
That is all it took for the extremists in the North Carolina legislator to craft HB2 to overturn the city of Charlotte’s LGBT non-discrimination law and include an anti-trans bathroom measure to up the awful quotient.
Here is what the law does:
Despite businesses and corporations like Red Hat, Biogen, Dow Chemical, and others coming out in opposition, the bill passed the NC House by 83 to 25 (the yes votes include 11 Democrats) and 32-0 in the Senate after all the Democrats walked out. At around 10pm that same night, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed it into law.
The special session cost North Carolina around $42,000 and that is before costly legal challenges begin (it is likely the bill violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Sex Discrimination in Education).
I’ve already had someone respond to a post I made asking why don’t I just move. They wanted to know what’s keeping me from leaving the South to her backward thinking and hateful laws.
Not only is this my home but the ones who would gladly use their bible and their bigotry to discriminate need me here.
As a mature Caucasian woman of progressive beliefs, living in an island of blue in the sea of red which is the great state of Louisiana, it is vital that my voice be raised to say #NoHateInMyState
Those who care about the future we’re creating need to stay and work on making things better. Get involved if you don’t like what you are seeing/hearing. Fight for what we know is right.
And, even more importantly, we must vote! Our vote is our voice. Vote in all elections and not just in Presidential ones.
Because in the final analysis, the only questions that matter are the ones asked by John Lewis:
If not us, then who?
If not now, then when?