One day after it was introduced, a Republican bill that would ban marriage equality in North Carolina is essentially dead on arrival, after the GOP House Speaker said the legislation would not be considered because, well, the Supreme Court:
“There are strong constitutional concerns with this legislation given that the U.S. Supreme Court has firmly ruled on the issue, therefore House Bill 780 will be referred to the House Rules Committee and will not be heard,” said [House Speaker Tim] Moore in a statement.
No shit. Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told NBC Out earlier today that the legislation "could pass, but it doesn't matter because it is plainly unconstitutional:"
“It is directly contrary to what the United States Supreme Court has said on this subject. It violates the rights that the United States Supreme Court has recognized, so as a result, I think it would be struck down by any court in this country."
The Republican legislators who introduced the bill surely knew that for themselves. It’s fair to say, then, that it was probably meant as a reminder from them to LGBT North Carolinians that they aren’t welcome in the state.
Rep. Deb Butler, one of two openly-gay members of the General Assembly, called the action “despicable:"
"Nothing surprises me out of this legislature anymore," Butler told NBC Out. "As if we haven't already been in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons this year with HB2, we're now going to prove just how draconian and ridiculous we are."
"It seems that these alt-right legislators don't learn from mistakes made, and they feel this sort of damaging and disruptive behavior is somehow going to get them reelected, and I think the contrary will prove true," Butler added.
It’s clear no lessons have been learned by bigots with power to legislate. Another hateful bill was just filed in the North Carolina House that would punish sports conferences that want to boycott the state in protest of HB2:
This time, legislators have proposed a bill going after the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which pulled championship games from the state last year because of the anti-LGBT “bathroom bill,” HB2.
The new bill, House Bill 728, says that if an intercollegiate athletic association boycotts North Carolina in the future, the campuses in the University of North Carolina system in that conference would be prohibited from granting any media rights to that conference, and would provide written notice to that conference that they intend to leave upon the expiration of media rights.
In other words, if the ACC boycotts North Carolina again due to its discriminatory laws, the ACC would lose two of its biggest schools, the University of North Carolina and N.C. State.