As North Korea terrorizes and starves million of its own people, as Saudi Arabia arrests tens of thousands who do not observe the Muslim faith, imprisons them, and executes them, as the South Sudan kills tens of thousands of refugees, and as Iran hangs gays just for being gay, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has found an important cause to fill the main page of its website: criticizing religious freedom-oriented bathroom laws in the U.S.
Turning to Human Rights Campaign’s website reveals to the visitor a multitude of stories about the purported “abuses” of American states passing religious freedom laws meant to protect small businesses as well as the privacy of women and children using public restrooms.
Characterized as “anti-LGBT laws,” HRC’s website is filled with stories pushing the gay lobby’s position and insisting that the various laws across the country are somehow a danger to human rights.
Meanwhile, bathroom bills are filtering across the country with some states going one way with their considerations and others the opposite.
New York City, for instance, is winding up to rule that all single stall bathrooms must be “gender neutral,” a move proponents claim is a “positive step forward in the fight for equal rights.”
On the other hand, the Lone Star State just gained another voice leaning in favor of a religious freedom bill like North Carolina’s, as state Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has jumped into the debate by coming down in favor of North Carolina’s efforts, and South Carolina looks to emulate neighboring North Carolina with a similar bathroom bill of its own.
The entire discussion of bathroom laws was kicked off by North Carolina’s HB2 bill, of course, opposition to which Republican Governor Pat McCrory calls nothing but “political theater” drummed up by “left-wing activist groups.”
In a recent interview with NBC News, McCrory said opposition to HB2 is “political correctness gone amok,” and while he did have some sympathy for the very few transgender people living in his state, he said that bending over backwards for them is a step too far.
“I empathize with these people who have some very unique needs. But at the same time it doesn’t mean everyone else should have to compromise a well established etiquette of men in men’s restrooms and showers and locker rooms,” the Governor said.
Supporters of these laws say their goal is nothing like the florid warnings of the radical gay lobby. These bills are not “anti-LGBT” laws, as HRC wants to claim. They are pro-privacy, pro-safety, and pro-religious freedom statutes, supporters insist.
Supporters also say they have no desire to try to stomp on the rights of transgender people and homosexuals. Rather, they want to ensure that predators do not use badly crafted laws that tend to acquiesce to the demands of the LGBT lobby as an excuse to commit crimes. And most especially, many of these bills are aimed at making sure teenaged girls are not forced to shower with boys in public schools.
Indeed, as the debate roils over retail giant Target’s decision to allow transgender shoppers and employees to use any bathroom they feel like using at any given time, the number of crimes committed by sexual predators continues to proliferate, both in bathrooms at Target stores and elsewhere.
While most LGBT supporters dismiss as silly this worry of predators abusing the gay-friendly laws, even liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus admitted that the only logical outcome is exactly what detractors of LGBT-friendly bathroom policies fear. If transgender “rights” become a legal thing, then it is inevitable that girls be forced to shower with boys in schools (and vice versa).
“Even for people of goodwill, the emergence of transgender rights is going to take some adjusting,” Marcus admitted.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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