The economic backlash against the anti-LGBT North Carolina law which prevents cities from passing anti-discrimination laws aimed at protecting the rights of LGBT residents has produced a number of predictable reactions from canceled rock concerts to politically motivated bans on government and business travel to the state.
D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser banned all official travel to the state, and on Friday musician Bruce Springsteen canceled a concert in Greensboro over the measure. North Carolina, where the state motto is Esse Quam Videri, “To Be Rather than to Seem” has taken a serious step toward using religion to economically punish its LGBT citizens.
New York governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo banned non-essential state travel to the Tobacco Road state and sharply criticized North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory for passing the extreme law which forces people to use bathrooms according to their birth sex.
McCrory shot back, calling Cuomo a hypocrite for condemning him while seeking trade with Cuba given its dismal record of human rights abuses. McCrory might have delved further into foreign policy to make his point.
North Carolinians tell me the state’s anti-LGBT law is a politically motivated “red-meat” issue tossed into the national arena to help the GOP in the presidential elections. They cite other laws in Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia and Georgia to support their argument.
As I am not privy to the inside GOP politics of North Carolina or Dixie as a whole, I cannot confirm nor deny the opinion of my North Carolina sources and friends. I can, however, speak to the economics of the issue.
Employment discrimination, as I know too well from multiple encounters with long serving North Carolina GOP Sen. Jesse Helms, is bad for business and bad for employees, LGBT and straight allies. Certainly Dixie political leaders weighed political and economic reaction to their “religious freedom” and “bathroom segregation” laws. These states had better policy options than the way they have gone but they went the way of “religious freedom” and exclusion anyway.
Traditionally the Deep South is resistant to social and economic change. Marriage equality in Dixie is seen as “marriage civil rights” and Southerners, I am told, still have resistant attitudes in the form of invidious discrimination toward civil rights for African Americans.
The anti-LGBT laws in the Deep South come at a time when the Confederate States of America battle flag has been removed from government and university grounds and statues of CSA military heroes
may be the next to go. Buildings and parks named for CSA heroes may also be on the social change chopping block for Dixie.
President Obama is largely considered unqualified to be president of the United States by Southerners and his policies are hugely unpopular with a majority of Dixie voters. On top of this, Obama’s citizenship
remains questionable as well as his claimed Christianity. Southern suspicions also rise over Obama’s “Muslim” agenda for America and as many as 10,000 unvetted Syrian refugees seeking temporary asylum. Southerners believe Obama will provide unlimited and unearned social and economic benefits for refugees at the expense of Americans.
Obama’s presidency and his social, economic and foreign policy agendas combined with his begrudging second term support for marriage equality and other LGBT rights issues has produced, to put it mildly, a surge in religious concerns/fears by Southerners legislatively formalized by their politicians in “religious freedom” laws.
In a sense this may be considered democracy at work. It may also be considered as democracy at odds with democracy. In a larger sense what we are seeing in Dixie is an experiment in democracy. To quote an academic colleague on this experiment: “It ain’t pretty.”
The Civil War, or the War Between the States as Southerners who can’t abide “civil” prefer, was not pretty. Jim Crow laws were not pretty. Segregation was not pretty. Discrimination is not pretty. My savage battles over employment equality with Jesse Helms were not pretty. The anti-LGBT laws in North Carolina and in Dixie are not pretty.
In a sense the South may be considered today as a confederacy against LGBT rights. The political and economic backlash could lead to a modern day Southern “surrender” to LGBT equality at historic Appomattox.
Georgia GOP Gov. Nathan Deal did something of surrender to LGBT rights in Atlanta. He should call on other Southern governors to do likewise in their states. It is economically and politically the right thing to do.
Longtime Washington diplomat Jim Patterson writes from California and Washington. JEPCapitolHill@gmail.com
