What does a quirky yet beloved New Year’s tradition have to do with North Carolina’s much-maligned bathroom bill?
Clever tactics allowed state lawmakers to preserve Brasstown’s annual Possum Drop when it came under fire from animal rights activists in 2013. Legislators can apply the same less-is-more logic to engineer a solution acceptable to both sides in the House Bill 2 debate.
Clay’s Corner, a community store in Brasstown, rings in the New Year by lowering an opossum in a Plexiglas pyramid as the stroke of midnight approaches. While organizers say the festivities don’t harm the small marsupial, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sought to end the practice.
When critics contended the Possum Drop broke state law, legislators exempted Clay County from any wildlife laws related to the Virginia opossum between the dates of Dec. 26 and Jan. 2. A 2015 update expanded the exemption statewide.
By suspending regulations, the General Assembly didn’t expressly permit the Possum Drop. Instead, it removed obstacles that could otherwise be used to curtail it.
We find ourselves wondering whether the same kind of arm’s-length, hands-off approach could bring the HB2 debacle to a merciful end.
The mess started when the Charlotte City Council passed a Feb. 24 ordinance adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s nondiscrimination policy and requiring businesses and government agencies to give transgender people access to the restrooms and changing rooms that match their expressed gender.
Republican legislative leaders called a March 23 special session to invalidate the ordinance. Apart from arguing that Charlotte exceeded its authority, lawmakers whipped up panic over farfetched fears of sexual predators masquerading as trans women.
In a single day, they passed an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bill that requires people to use the restrooms designated for the gender listed on their birth certificates, overwrites nondiscrimination policies to exclude gay and transgender people from protected classes and prevents cities from setting their own minimum wage.
HB2 ignited a national firestorm. Musicians canceled concerts en masse. PayPal scrapped a planned expansion, diverting 700 jobs out of state. The NBA All-Star Game ditched Charlotte for New Orleans. The NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference moved their tournaments.
Some estimates peg HB2’s economic damage at north of $400 million. The law also exacted a political toll — in a year of GOP dominance, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory lost his bid for re-election to Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat who campaigned against HB2. Raleigh lawyer Josh Stein narrowly beat Wilson state Sen. Buck Newton, a leading HB2 supporter, in the attorney general race.
In a Dillon Rule state where cities derive their powers from the General Assembly, lawmakers quite understandably wanted to keep Charlotte in check. But they used a sledgehammer where a scalpel would have sufficed.
Here’s the shrewdest, simplest solution to the HB2 imbroglio — pass a three-sentence bill declaring any city restroom access rules null and void. Then repeal House Bill 2 in its entirety.
Progressives win by getting bathroom bans off the books. Conservatives win by showing Charlotte who’s boss and stopping short of expressly permitting restroom choice. Both sides can claim victory.
Seems to us the “men,” “women” and “unisex” signs posted on bathroom doors were working just fine before. Transgender people used their own judgment. If someone was born female but is now male from all outward appearances, that person would face less scrutiny in the men’s room. Fellow patrons didn’t know the difference, and it’s really none of their business anyway.
Excluding the title, the 2013 opossum bill consists of just 57 words, a model of legislative restraint. House Bill 2 drones on for five pages of dense legalese.
Both Charlotte’s ordinance and HB2 can rightly be described as solutions in search of a problem. Both represent an incursion of government into private life for the sole purpose of social engineering.
Lawmakers should press the reset button, taking North Carolina back to a time when Tar Heels were trusted to figure out bathroom issues for themselves.
A couple lean, simple sentences is all it takes. Let the possum be your guide.
— The Wilson Times