Paul V. Brown: State still shamed by leaders

So, was Charlotte’s transgender ordinance wrong as many elected officials said, and thus deserving of the remedy of House Bill 2? Or is it wrong to ban transgender people from various stages of undress in the presence of the opposite sex only if sports and entertainment powers don’t object?

The state legislature and Gov. Roy Cooper sacrificed North Carolina on the altars of money and popularity when they passed the so-called repeal bill. No media outlet that I’ve found has discovered discrimination of any kind that transgender people in Charlotte or anywhere in the state suffered prior to passage of the ordinance. Or while HB2 was the law.

Some things are worth standing up for. It’s clear that a strident transgender minority and “ain’t-we-sophisticated” sports conglomerates bullied elected officials into abandoning a law that did what laws should do – protect people. That and peer pressure from state and national media insisting that residents of other states thought badly of North Carolinians.

Our leaders acted like middle-schoolers desperate to be liked. They were hoodwinked, much to this fine state’s shame.

This story was originally published April 1, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Paul V. Brown: State still shamed by leaders."