Keep politics out of bathroom

By Paul Sassone
Paul Sassone

Paul Sassone

Same excuses, new victim.

North Carolina legislators are taking tremendous national and international heat resulting from their zeal to punish those who are different from them.

A new North Carolina law codifies discrimination against gay and transgender people.

Getting the most public attention is that part of the law which limits access to bathrooms, showers, locker rooms and other changing facilities in public schools and government buildings to a person’s sex identity at birth.

Even more insidious is another provision of the law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin and biological sex — but not sexual orientation or gender identity.

So, I guess, if the owner of a lunch counter in North Carolina wants to refuse service to gay people, well that’s OK with the state.

Remember when lunch counters used to refuse service to black people?

That only stopped when courageous protesters and the federal government forced it to stop.

I don’t see the difference between discriminating against people because of their color, or because of their sexual orientation. People should not be penalized for what they are.

There are reasons why a merchant could refuse to serve a customer. But those would be based on a customer’s behavior— intimidating staff, refusing to pay, etc. But not because of a customer’s identity. Might as well forbid service to everyone over six feet tall.

The bathroom part of the law is rife with potential for harm.

Proponents of the law use the same tired old argument that the law is aimed at protecting children. But children might be more confused or afraid if they saw what appeared to be a person of the opposite sex entering the bathroom. The law also might put the transgendered person in harm’s way.

This is a bad law, deserving of the opposition it is receiving world-wide. But other states — mostly in the south, mostly controlled by Republicans — seem eager to jump on the gay discrimination bandwagon.

You know, conservatives always are prattling about getting government out of our private lives.

Yet here they are, meddling in the most private part of people’s lives.

Hey, state governments, stay out of the bathroom.

–Keep politics out of bathroom–