Written by Peter/Ethel Thurston
Sitting in the UK whilst watching any part of American politics is a little like watching a train wreck, except considering the phenomenon of ‘America lead, Britain follows’ we kind of have to question our own safety. But alas there has been one story unfurling over the past couple of months that has seemingly taken the US by storm and that is the North Carolina controversy. If you do not know what the issue involves it is concerning House Bill 2 aka HB2 which effectively denies any LGBT+ individual protection under the 14th amendment. These are the same protections surrounding institutions designed to stop discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, sex, nationality, age, pregnancy, citizenship, veteran status, family status and disability.
Now there are two questions to take from this. Firstly, why did this happen and secondly, how? To answer the first we must understand what can be seen as the four main levels at play with these bills. First we have place of employment/education (institution) e.g. the companies who offer jobs and have a corporate policy. Then we have city wide ordinances that can dictate rulings to said institutions. But they are in turn bound by state legislators who are the third level before finally reaching the fourth and final level which is federal legislation which is nationwide. So to recap; Institution < City < State < Federal.
When these four layers are in a discord it can create tension and ignite problems that affect everyone which is possible due to differences in election patterns and that is exactly what happened in North Carolina. When the city of Charlotte outlawed LGBT discrimination in February the kickback was inevitable. This action by the more liberal city led the republican state senator to create and pass the HB2 bill in effect disabling Charlotte’s anti-discrimination law.
This in turn led to the backlash we have seen in the news with countless businesses withdrawing plans to expand into North Carolina, concerts being cancelled and even our government announcing a warning for people travelling to North Carolina and states with similar laws. What this also led to was the U.S. Justice Department working on the federal level demanding that North Carolina acknowledges that HB2 breaches the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban on anti-discrimination ordinances or risk losing federal funding. This was announced last Friday and they expected an answer before Monday.
North Carolina’s response?
File a lawsuit against the U.S. Justice Department of course! Which resulted in the U.S. Justice Department creating a counter lawsuit which brings us to the how this happened as well as how this will likely result in a resounding victory for LGBT+ equality across the United States.
Whilst the 14th amendment does offer protection on the basis of sex, nowhere does it offer it based upon sexuality and the bigots have run on the poorly defined ‘sex’ to justify trans discrimination. In all previous occasions where discrimination laws were taken to the court they have been revoked on principles other than 14th amendment meaning that unlike with ethnicity these protections were never clearly extended to the LGBT+ community, allowing for states to challenge the U.S. Justice Department as North Carolina is now doing.
But in doing so we could finally see a civil rights act which defends LGBT+ individuals coming into place, abolishing not just HB2 but all other discrimination ordinances that have passed at the state, city and institutional level. Sitting across the pond form our LGBT+ friends in the US we can only hope that this lawsuit is the move that finally forced the federal hand to enact such a civil rights bill, to finally spark a new era of American LGBT+ history.
I think it’s time, let’s see if they agree.