Saturday, July 09, 2016

68 Major Companies Join in Amicus Brief Against HB2

NC homophobe-in-chief, Pat McCrory with Paul Ryan
I continue to believe that the hate and batshitery embodied in North Carolina's HB2 and the corporate backlash to the bill ought to be an object lesson to Virginia's knuckle dragging Republicans and their spittle flecked Christofascist puppeteers.  Not only is North Carolina continuing to hemorrhage business losses  - Charlotte's convention business is being hammered - but the media coverage is unrelentingly negative.  Now, 68 major corporations have joined in an amicus brief arguing that HB2 must be struck down.  The list of companies is a who's who of household names and some are major players in North Carolina's business community that are livid over the North Carolina GOP's self-prostitution to the ugliest elements of the Christofascists in that state (and national hate groups funding some of them).  The Raleigh News & Observer looks at the companies joining in the brief. Here are excerpts:
American Airlines, Microsoft and Marriott are among 68 companies that signed an amicus brief in the lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s House Bill 2.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson authored the brief on behalf of Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT advocacy group that is leading opposition to the law. The brief will be filed in the lawsuit currently pending between state leaders and the U.S. Department of Justice, which is trying to strike down the law as discriminatory.
“That so many in the business community are willing to stand up in opposition to HB2 underscores the immeasurable and irreparable harm the law is doing to the transgender community and to North Carolina’s economy,” Olson said in a news release.
In the brief, the companies argue that the law is “an affront to their nondiscrimination policies” and “undermines their ability to do business within and outside of North Carolina,” according to the news release.
Other companies that signed the brief include: Apple, Bloomberg, Capital One, General Electric, IBM, Nike, Morgan Stanley, PayPal, Dow Chemical and Red Hat.
Late Friday, Gov. Pat McCrory’s office issued a statement criticizing the companies’ involvement with the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, McCrory's Democrat opponent continues to hammer him on the harm he and anti-LGBT extremists are doing to the state.  As for McCrory's claim that HB2 "protects women and girls,"  there are ZERO cases of transgender individuals stalking in restrooms. ZERO cases.  In contrast, if one looks at Freethought Today, EVERY issue has multiple pages filled with reports crimes by clergy, many involving sexual misconduct.  Banning clergy from restrooms would do far more to protect the public than HB2.

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