NC governor doubles down on anti-LGBT law, continues to blame gay rights group

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina‘s gubernatorial candidates clashed Tuesday in a live televised debate over the state’s economy, coal ash pits and a law signed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory that prompted a national uproar over its impact on LGBT people.

In what’s likely to be their final debate, McCrory sought anew to blame rival Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper and a political alliance with Charlotte‘s mayor for forcing Republican leaders in Raleigh to pass the controversial law known as House Bill 2.

The law approved last March limits nondiscrimination ordinances by local governments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. It also requires transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and government buildings that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.

McCrory said he and the legislature acted because Charlotte city leaders had expanded their nondiscrimination ordinance to cover hotels, restaurants and stores that would be forced to let people use the bathroom matching their gender identity.

“The left brought this issue up, not the right,” McCrory said, also blaming LGBT activists with the group Human Rights Campaign for forcing the issue. Without the bathroom directive by Charlotte, he added, “I don’t think we would have had any problems because I don’t believe in any type of discrimination.”

Gay rights groups, corporate CEOs and entertainers have blasted the law as state-sanctioned bigotry, and the federal government sued to overturn the law. McCrory, supported by social conservatives, has gone to court to get the bathroom provisions upheld.

Cooper kept to his own mantra of blaming McCrory for harming North Carolina’s reputation by signing the law, pointing out that it prevents local and state governments from barring private businesses from employment discrimination because someone is gay.

These and other provisions are “why we are suffering such economic damage for it,” Cooper said at the WRAL-TV studios, adding that “it writes discrimination into our law and it is wrong, period.”

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