Political Correctness Run Amok: Using the NBA All-Star Game to Punish North Carolina

This article in The Washington Examiner "George Orwell, call your office" with this great quote about Silicon Valley:

"People here pride themselves on a kind of militant open-mindedness," Manjoo writes. "It is the kind of place that will severely punish any deviations from accepted schools of thought."

spurred me to look again at the pressure being brought on North Carolina as a result of it now famed House Bill 2 (see here), now including the National Basketball Association's decision to move the 2017 NBA All-Star game from Charlotte:

“While we recognize that the NBA cannot choose the law in every city, state, and country in which we do business, we do not believe we can successfully host our All-Star festivities in Charlotte in the climate created by HB2,” the NBA’s statement read.

The league did however, acknowledge that the NBA and the Hornets have been “working diligently to foster constructive dialogue and try to effect positive change.”

The league issued a statement Thursday saying the alternate site for 2017 will be named in the next few weeks. The NBA is focused on New Orleans, league sources told online site The Vertical.

McCrory and state legislators who support HB2 have said important privacy concerns are at stake. Following the NBA’s decision Thursday, McCrory continued to defend the law.

“American families should be on notice that the selective corporate elite are imposing their political will on communities in which they do business, thus bypassing the democratic and legal process,” the Republican governor said in an emailed statement.

A spokesman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, called the All-Star Game news “incredibly disappointing.”

“How many damaging blows does North Carolina have to take before Governor McCrory realizes that HB2 must be repealed?” the spokesman said.

The "climate created by HB2? What the heck is that? No private enterprise is affected by HB2 - at least as far as bathroom usage. The climate is seems mostly to be an effort to attack the Republican governor and state legislature. Any resident of NC is now well familiar with the "Moral Monday" movement which has been complaining ever since the Legislature passed into Republican hands during the last election - complaints covering everything from redistricting to voter ID to HB2.

Actual text of NC House Bill 2 by lawofsea on Scribd

Note, the statute has been amended slightly, see here:

The legislature approved limited changes to House Bill 2 late Friday night, restoring residents’ right to bring claims of discrimination in state courts.

Gov. Pat McCrory had been seeking the action for months. HB2, best known for requiring transgender people in government facilities to use bathrooms matching the gender on their birth certificates, also blocked a path that North Carolinians had to file state-court discrimination claims.

Though lawmakers’ action Friday restores that path, it comes with a statute of limitations shorter than before — one year instead of three years.

“As we said from the beginning, there was never an intent to limit the right of anybody to seek redress in state court,” House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters.
***

"Militant open-mindness" really hates people with opposing views of "the right thing to do" doesn't it?

It is interesting, too, that the governor of New York has banned NY state funds from being used for travel to NC because of HB2:

New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s stand against North Carolina’s anti-transgender law has led to the cancelation of Albany’s game at Duke.

The controversial law stipulates that transgender people must use public bathrooms corresponding to their gender at birth and removes employees’ ability to sue employers for discrimination or wrongful termination. Cuomo put out an executive order in response to the law being passed, and Albany, a public university in the State University of New York system, will not travel to Durham Nov. 12 as originally scheduled.

"The State University of New York supports Governor Cuomo's executive order banning all non-essential travel to the state of North Carolina,'' SUNY spokesperson Holly Liapsis said in a statement to the Durham Herald-Sun. "We instructed our campuses to immediately review any existing travel plans by faculty and staff. SUNY and its campuses continue to support the Governor on taking this stand."

First, as noted above, the SI article has it wrong - employees never lost the right to "sue employers for discrimination for wrongful termination" - they always had the right to pursue a federal case (and part of the rationale for that part of HB2 was to clear the state courts of such cases) and, in any event, that portion of the law has been amended to allow such suits again, albeit with 1 year statute of limitations.

Second, does not Gov. Cuomo open up his own state to similar acts by other states on the basis of NY laws with which they disagree? Suppose NY has laws which Texas feels violate the Second Amendment - will Texas now forbid government funding of travel to New York until NY changes its laws to meet Texas standards?

Frankly, I won't miss the NBA All-Stars and Duke's basketball schedule issues are not high on my list of big deals.

I'm sure the federal litigation over HB2 (in which NC has been joined by other states) will be interesting as the federal government seeks to define "gender identity" as a protected classification. See here:

North Carolina Gov. Patrick L. McCrory on Thursday asked a federal judge to throw out the Justice Department’s lawsuit over his state’s so-called bathroom bill and accused the U.S. government of inappropriately trying to change the meaning of the word “sex.”

In a 31-page court filing, lawyers for the Republican governor wrote that the federal government’s new definition of sex was illegal and would upend settled interpretation of federal laws. They urged a judge to ignore the government’s definition, which they said would force employers, educational institutions, and state and local governments to significantly readjust the way they do business.

“This regime would, among other things, force individuals using all manner of state property to share restrooms, showers and other such facilities with members of the opposite sex,” the lawyers wrote. “It would necessitate restructuring the operations of state educational institutions, including the manner in which funding is equitably allocated, athletic teams are organized, and student safety is ensured.”

They added: “It would require that correctional institutions be reevaluated to determine how they may comply with these new directives while simultaneously protecting the safety and security of inmates and state employees. And, it would compel state officials to follow a wholly uncharted course in preventing and remedying complaints of sexual harassment throughout state government’s day-to-day operations.”