Carla Levesque: Avoiding North Carolina

My family lives an alternate lifestyle in New Hampshire. We are respectable people in our 60s and 70s. We have never been in trouble with the law. We are a quiet, monogamous married couple who have been together for 30 years. We have business in North Carolina.

Instead of driving to Raleigh, staying two nights in a hotel, buying food and gas and catching a sight or two, we are staying two nights in Virginia and spending our money there. We are meeting the person we are doing business with near the border of Virginia, but we will not set one foot inside North Carolina. This decision was made out of fear.

In a state that institutes discrimination against us into its law, we cannot trust either the population to welcome us or the police to protect us. I know that our two-day stay does not amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but there are many other people being influenced to stay away from your state and therefore taking their business elsewhere.

I can only assume that if North Carolina does not want me, it does not want my business.

This story was originally published August 22, 2016 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Carla Levesque: Avoiding North Carolina."