Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the passage of North Carolina’s House Bill 2 — popularly labeled as the state’s “bathroom bill” — which was passed last spring to overturn a Charlotte city ordinance mandating public bathrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities be open to use by persons based on their “gender identity.” Though polls have shown that the law’s actual precepts have plenty support from North Carolina residents, the LGBT community and their allies on the Left have not ceased their attacks on the state.

Several weeks ago, the Human Rights Campaign announced the launch of a campaign to convince the NCAA to restrict sports championship events — such as March Madness tournament games — to liberal-leaning states. The NCAA has since partially acceded to these threats, issuing an ultimatum to North Carolina to either repeal HB 2 or lose events until 2022. This does not come as much of a surprise, considering last September, the NCAA announced it would be relocating seven college athletic events from North Carolina due to the HB 2.

Former Governor Pat McCrory and state Republicans have also ironically been accused of causing “economic damage” to North Carolina for passing the bill — a creative way of spinning the governor’s refusal to surrender to corporate threats — by the same liberals who often attack the GOP for being owned by Corporate America. In the most recent example of this strange shift, a report published by the Associated Press claims that HB 2 will cost the state $3.76 billion over the next “dozen years,” though the many hypotheticals involved make this far from definite. Most amusingly, however, the article, goes on to admit that “still, North Carolina was shown to have had the nation’s 10th fastest growing economy in the six months after the law was passed.” So much for an economic disaster.

Nevertheless, these efforts illustrate a desperate attempt by LGBT-allied liberals and their deep-pocketed corporate sympathizers to coerce lawmakers into repealing a bill which affects just a third of a percent of North Carolina’s population. Fortunately, Republicans have not yet given in to the bullying.

Photo credit: mathiaswasik via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0