On March 30, 2017, North Carolina lawmakers have successfully repealed the HB2 Bathroom Bill which has been a source of controversy for several months. With a vote of 70-48 from the North Carolina House of Representatives, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper authorized the bill to be turned into law.
According to the ABC News, North Carolina would sustain over billions of dollars' worth of lost business in the next dozen years if the controversial bathroom bill would continue. Sporting events, concerts, and conventions have also canceled business in the State because of the bill.
Last July, the NBA pulled out its supposed to be 2017 All-Star game out of Charlotte, and Bruce Springsteen canceled his scheduled concert in the state as well, losing more than $196 million in supposed revenue. This added the pressure to the lawmakers even more, and when the NCAA threatened to exclude North Carolina from several more sporting events, that's when the state's Democratic governor and leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature decided to vote to repeal the bill.
In a statement made by Republican Representative Scott Stone, he said: "We are impeding the growth in our revenue, in our ability to do more things for tourism, for teacher pay, while we have this stigma hanging over. The time has come for us to get out from under the national spotlight for negative things. You can't go anywhere on this planet without somebody knowing what is HB2 and having some perception about it," Travel Pulse reported.
But some members of the LGBT community are still not contented with the state's decision, saying that they are still not stripped of discrimination until the bill would undergo full repeal. According to Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance against Defamation, the new replacement bill is "politics at its worse."
Under the HB2 Bathroom Bill, individuals can only use public restrooms and changing facilities that naturally agree with the sex designated on their birth certificates. This represented a huge problem to the LGBT community, with supporters of the bill saying it's a necessary course of action to prevent sexual predators and instill privacy. But anti-supporters think the notion is ridiculous and full of nonsense.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
