Win For Civil Liberties; NC State Senate Upholds HB2 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: BCN welcomes Contributor Austin Goss, who, along with BCN Contributor Ryan Case, publishes a growing journal, The Liberty Fix, already steeped in information of a growing wisdom.

    House Bill Two, more commonly referred to as the "Bathroom Bill," was upheld during a special session of the North Carolina Senate last week. The bill, which requires that individuals use public restrooms that are consistent with the sex on their birth certificate, also allows private businesses to deal with their bathroom policy as they please.
North Carolina General Assembly in May, 2013: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    HB2 stems from a city ordinance passed by the leftist city council of Charlotte, requiring that any individual can use any public restroom, and also that private businesses would be required to let people use the bathroom of their choice, a gross overreach of basic civil liberties afforded to the individual and thus the small business.

    To anyone not living under a rock, the obvious and blatant virtue signaling that ensued following the initial passage of HB2 this past March was just as apprehensible. Various different musicians and groups, up to and including Ringo Starr, Nick Jonas, and others canceled gigs in North Carolina. The NCAA, NBA, and other sporting organizations also moved different events out of the state in lieu of the passage of this law.

    Of course, as is a recurring theme in the year 2016, the absolute disconnect between liberal media, Hollywood, and the average American is appalling. To most average Americans, HB2 is common sense. Even as the media, from every angle for months upon months has continued an all out assault on this law upholding basic decency, support for the legislation itself has remained fairly consistent.

    As a conservative, there are two reasons to support and continue to support this legislation as it comes under further fire. The obvious one being the fact that it prevents men (yes, real men) with a sad and scary mental disorder the chance to walk into any elementary school and pee next to our daughters. Of course, there are few incidents in which this actually occurs, but opening the floodgate for anyone claiming to be a woman to just walk in is disgusting, seeing that the standard to enter the restroom of the opposite sex would to just simply claim to be that sex.

    Secondly, and less discussed, is the obvious infringement of the government, the government of the city of Charlotte in this case, to tell businesses how they can and cannot operate. The not so radical idea that the government should not have the ability to completely infringe upon private businesses, but rather private businesses should be allowed to set the tone for who uses what restrooms, and however they decide they will go about sorting that out. If the government were simply to allow private businesses to determine this policy on their own, then the consumer, what keeps a business's doors open, would be much more likely to generate the rules and policies for that business, which would likewise drive up revenue and earnings. Take for example Target. Target, one of the most well known stores in the country, decided that transgender individuals could use whichever restrooms they so chose. In response, Target's stock value dropped 400% in an extremely short amount of time. Not only was this a testament to Americans outright and full rejection of the transgender bathroom policy, but also this would give credence to the idea that it would probably be smart for Target to change this policy, or to not take such a hardline stance, in order to avoid losing more business.

    As the progressive left continues to move farther and farther left, it is the American common sense conservatives hope that the officials they elect will continue to reject legislation like HB2 wholesale. Not just for reasons relating to common morality, but for reasons that relate to the rights of entities not tied into the government, like private businesses, and their ability to determine what policies will best cater to their buyers and consumers.