Rev. Franklin Graham says businesses and organizations should not be “forced by law to allow men pretending to be women to use women’s restrooms.”
“Men have no business using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. Period,” Graham posted to Facebook Friday. “It’s not up to us to decide our sex—God determines that.”
Graham says he disagrees with GOP candidate Donald Trump’s comments on the North Carolina public safety and privacy law. Trump said people should use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.
The evangelist continued:
He said that if Caitlyn Jenner came to Trump Tower, he could use any bathroom he wanted. That’s Mr. Trump’s prerogative on his own property. But businesses and organizations shouldn’t be forced by law to allow men pretending to be women to use women’s restrooms. NC Governor Pat McCrory and legislators were absolutely right to pass HB2 to protect young girls, boys, and women from sexual predators and perverts.
Trump’s comments drew the ire of conservative leaders Thursday after an NBC Today Show town hall in which the Republican frontrunner said North Carolina had “paid a big price” for requiring transgenders to use the restroom that corresponds with their biological sex.
“Leave it the way it is,” he said.
“One of the best answers I heard was from a commentator yesterday, saying ‘Leave it the way it is right now,’” Trump continued. “There have been very few problems. Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they’re going through with all of the business that’s leaving and all of the strife, and that’s on both sides — you leave it the way it is.”
“There have been very few complaints the way it is,” Trump added. “People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife, and the — the economic punishment that they’re taking.”
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told Breitbart News Trump’s comments were “ambiguous” at best.
“In this case, his response is very confusing, and this is, as the legislators in North Carolina have pointed out, this is a public safety issue,” Perkins said. “This bill is beyond the ‘sexual confusion’ the left is pushing for 0.5 percent of the population, to a public safety issue, and I think he needs to speak out with clarity.”
“Look, the legislators responded to their constituents and, if anything, he should be speaking to his friends in big business to quit being literally on the strings as puppets for radical sexual anarchists,” he added.
Conservative Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America said, “Bathroom privacy bills are not meant to discriminate against those who identify as transgender.”
She added that the larger problem is Trump’s judgment.
“This is why conservatives are right to question Donald Trump’s judgment,” Nance continued. “His instincts are wrong on our core values. He has spent his life surrounded by Manhattan elites who have never shopped in a Target. Of course he doesn’t understand the outrage. I don’t know if this will ultimately hurt him politically, but it should.”
Similarly, Peter Wolfgang, president of Family Institute of Connecticut Action, said, “Donald Trump has refused to defend the rights of ordinary citizens against LGBT bullying throughout his presidential campaign.”
“No one should be surprised that Trump now supports allowing men in women’s bathrooms,” he continued. “The only surprise is that anyone who is socially conservative would still support him for President.”
Breitbart News has now reached out to the Trump campaign twice to ask if he would be comfortable with a four-year-old Ivanka going into a bathroom at Target in which there was a 35-year-old man wearing a dress, but has yet to receive a response.