title:  North Carolina GOP Makes State Crappier Place To Live, Passes Bill Allowing LGBT Discrimination
text: North Carolina Republicans jammed another bigoted extremist bill into law on Wednesday, making the state an even worse place to live.Ever since taking over the legislature in 2012 and the governor s mansion in 2013, Republicans have been aggressively turning North Carolina into one of the most conservative states in the nation.From extreme gun laws, to draconian anti-abortion laws, to attempts to declare Christianity the state religion, Republicans have literally done everything they can to embarrass themselves and destroy the state that had been progressing wonderfully over the years.And now, North Carolina Republicans have added a new reason for people to hate them and the state.Not too long ago, the city of Charlotte passed an ordinance protecting the LGBT community from discrimination.But Republicans couldn t accept that, so they conjured up House Bill 2 to not only override the ordinance, but also ban other cities and counties in the state from doing anything to protect LGBT people from being discriminated against as well.It took all of ten hours for Republicans to pass the bill in the House 83-25 and in the Senate 32-0 and get it signed by Governor Pat McCrory in a sad demonstration of how democracy and inclusion has died in North Carolina.Senate Democrats were so disgusted by the bill that they staged an unprecedented walkout from the chamber in protest as the bill was being voted on, which is why it passes unanimously in a strictly partisan vote. The bill worked it s way through the legislature so fast that Democrats didn t even get the chance to read it over.According to Buzzfeed:House Bill 2 mandates that state law supersedes all local ordinances concerning wages, employment, and public accommodations. It also restricts single-sex public restrooms and locker rooms in publicly run facilities to people of the same sex on their birth certificate.In addition, it bans transgender students from school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity   teeing up a potential legal clash with the federal government, which has found that civil rights laws ban transgender discrimination in schools.North Carolina literally just enshrined discrimination into state law, and all because conservative  Christians  testified that the Charlotte ordinance and other ordinances in nine other jurisdictions would pave the way for sex offenders to prey upon women, a falsehood that McCrory happily repeated as he defended putting his bigoted signature on the bill. The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte,  McCrory said in a statement that explained why he signed the bill into law.The Charlotte ordinance, he continued,  defies common sense and basic community norms by allowing, for example, a man to use a woman s bathroom, shower or locker room. However, Buzzfeed notes that there has never been a single example in 17 states and 225 cities of LGBT protections being used to defend predatory behavior.Yet, Republicans passed the bill into law anyway, and that could lead to a mass exodus of businesses from the state. The state of Georgia is experiencing such an exodus right now as corporations threaten to leave if Governor Nathan Deal signs a discriminatory  religious liberty  bill that would allow bigotry against gay people. Disney and Marvel have already promised to take their business elsewhere and the NFL has threatened to take the Superbowl away from Atlanta. If a business backlash can happen in Georgia, it can happen in North Carolina, too. And that means North Carolina is going to face economic punishment along with having to waste millions of taxpayer dollars defending the new bill when the lawsuits begin to be filed.Republicans have run North Carolina into the ground. Featured image via  Wikimedia