An ongoing issue in North Carolina that is bringing to the surface the deep polarization of America and the world at large surrounding the rights of the LGBT community is the nondiscrimination ordinance enacted in Charlotte that allowed transgender individuals to use the public restrooms of the sex which they identify with. This local ordinance was overturned with a bill from North Carolina State’s legislators. “Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed the bill Wednesday night and tweeted, ‘Ordinance defied common sense, allowing men to use women’s bathroom/locker room for instance. That’s why I signed bipartisan bill to stop it.’”
He further explained that in addition to the common sense of having individuals use restrooms consistent with their biological gender (as stated on their birth certificate), are the issues of privacy and the protection of citizens and especially children and women from sexual predators that would disguise themselves as transgender only to prey on unsuspecting individuals. Just as some terrorists are infiltrating the refugee camps and exploiting it to their advantage to carry out their acts of terror, so sexual predators would use this law to make it easier for them to carry out their sexual abuses, defenders of the bill argue. There has been much backlash, criticism and even lawsuits against the governor and the state’s bill that overturned Charlotte’s ordinance; but amidst the criticism, North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore defended the bill by saying “‘One of the biggest issues was about privacy,’ Moore said. ‘The way the ordinance was written by City Council in Charlotte, it would have allowed a man to go into a bathroom, locker or any changing facility, where women are — even if he was a man. We were concerned. Obviously there is the security risk of a sexual predator, but there is the issue of privacy.’”2
Joining much of the population in their protest of the bill, major businesses and corporations have responded to the bill arguing that it is discriminatory and neither good for businesses or employees. “Bank of America, which has its headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., announced late Tuesday on Twitter that its leadership was joining over 80 chief executives, including Timothy D. Cook of Apple and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, in objecting to the new law. Earlier in the day, the chief executives published a letter, addressed to Mr. McCrory, on the Human Rights Campaign website, saying, “Such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business.”3
On one side of the issue are those who think like the state’s legislators that are placing the privacy and safety of citizens, which they call common sense, above the demands of a so-called marginalized group; while on the other side are businesses and individuals that are calling the bill discriminatory and bad for business. The question to be considered is what is more important, the jeopardizing of privacy and safety for a particular group and for the sake of “good business,” or the granting of demands of the transgender community for better business but at the risk of the general population. You decide.
“Yet this very class put forth the claim that the fast-spreading corruption is largely attributable to the desecration of the so-called “Christian sabbath,” and that the enforcement of Sunday observance would greatly improve the morals of society. This claim is especially urged in America, where the doctrine of the true Sabbath has been most widely preached. Here the temperance work, one of the most prominent and important of moral reforms, is often combined with the Sunday movement, and the advocates of the latter represent themselves as laboring to promote the highest interest of society; and those who refuse to unite with them are denounced as the enemies of temperance and reform. But the fact that a movement to establish error is connected with a work which is in itself good, is not an argument in favor of the error. We may disguise poison by mingling it with wholesome food, but we do not change its nature. On the contrary, it is rendered more dangerous, as it is more likely to be taken unawares. It is one of Satan’s devices to combine with falsehood just enough truth to give it plausibility. The leaders of the Sunday movement may advocate reforms which the people need, principles which are in harmony with the Bible; yet while there is with these a requirement which is contrary to God’s law, His servants cannot unite with them. Nothing can justify them in setting aside the commandments of God for the precepts of men.”4
Sources
1. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/north-carolina-gender-bathrooms-bill/
2. Ibid
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/us/north-carolina-governor-attacks-critics-of-law-curbing-protections-from-bias.html?_r=0
4. White, Ellen. The Great Controversy (1911), page 587
This article was written by Hilari Henriques at Prophesy Again
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