Senate Leader Phil Berger issued the following response Tuesday to Gov. Pat McCrory’s Executive Order:

“Gov. McCrory just put to rest the left's lies about HB 2 and proved it allows private and public employers, non-profits and churches the ability to adopt nondiscrimination policies that are stronger than state and federal law. But that fact is irrelevant to Roy Cooper and his left-wing political correctness mob with their agenda-driven allies in the liberal media, who will never stop trashing North Carolina until they achieve their goal of allowing any man into any women's bathroom or locker room at any time simply by claiming to feel like a woman.”

Background

The Bathroom Safety Bill does five key things: 

• It ensures that elementary, middle and high school children will not have to share bathrooms and locker rooms with the opposite sex. The bill still allows schools to accommodate individual students' needs with single occupancy multi-sex bathrooms and locker rooms. 

• It applies the same commonsense rule to public buildings throughout North Carolina.

• It prohibits local governments from mandating businesses accept men into women’s bathroom and locker rooms but gives private businesses freedom to make their own decisions regarding how to set up bathroom and locker rooms. And it allows private and public employers, non-profits and churches the ability to adopt their own nondiscrimination policies that are stronger than state and federal law.

• For the first time, it implements a statewide anti-discrimination policy in public accommodations stronger than what federal law requires.

• It helps prevent future situations like Charlotte’s overreaching ordinance by creating statewide consistency for laws related to employment and public accommodations. The bill prevents businesses from being forced to learn and comply with a patchwork of different rules in different cities across the state, which keeps it easy to do business in North Carolina.

 Key Facts

• Lawmakers are aware of several documented instances where men have dressed up like women or used policies similar to Charlotte’s bathroom ordinance to gain access to women’s bathrooms and changing rooms and spy on women and little girls.

• North Carolina’s new statewide anti-discrimination law is stronger than what federal law requires of the states.

• Twenty-eight states have nondiscrimination policies similar to or not as strong as North Carolina.