President Obama: NC and Mississippi laws ‘are wrong and should be overturned’

President Barrack Obama spoke at a press conference in London Friday calling the recent laws passed in North Carolina and Mississippi “wrong” and that they “should be overturned.”

Speaking alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron on his fifth visit to the U.K., President Obama was responding to a journalist who asked him to comment on the recent Foreign Office travel advisory warning U.K. citizens about the new laws in those states.

In its warning to travelers, the foreign office wrote, “The US is an extremely diverse society and attitudes towards LGBT people differ hugely across the country.” The two anti-LGBT laws that the U.K. foreign office was referring to are North Carolina’s House Bill 2 and Mississippi’s House Bill 1523.

The president responded, “I want everybody here in the United Kingdom to know that the people of North Carolina and Mississippi are wonderful people.  They are hospitable people.  They are beautiful states, and you are welcome and you should come and enjoy yourselves.  And I think you’ll be treated with extraordinary hospitality.

“I also think that the laws that have been passed there are wrong and should be overturned.  And they’re in response to politics, in part; in part, some strong emotions that are  generated by people — some of whom are good people but I just disagree with when it comes to respecting the equal rights of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, whether they’re transgender or gay or lesbian.  And although I respect their different viewpoints, I think it’s very important for us not to send signals that anybody is treated differently.

“And I think it’s fair to say that we’re not unique among countries where — particularly under a federal system in which power is dispersed, that there are going to be some localities or local officials that put forward laws that aren’t necessarily reflective of a national consensus.  But if you guys come to North Carolina or Mississippi, everybody will be treated well.”