LGBTQ rights groups took little time in challenging North Carolina House Bill 2, which invalidated an anti-discrimination ordinance adopted in Charlotte.
The lawsuit is a response to a bill passed in a special session convened by conservative members of the state legislature solely to override the city's LGBTQ-friendly ordinance.
"By singling out LGBT people for disfavored treatment and explicitly writing discrimination against transgender people into state law, H.B. 2 violates the most basic guarantees of equal treatment under the U.S. Constitution," the lawsuit claims.
It is being filed on behalf of Joaquín Carcaño, a transgender man employed by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Payton McGarry, a transgender man attending UNC-Greensboro; and Angela Gilmore, a lesbian who serves as the associate dean for student affairs at North Carolina Central University.
The named defendants in the case include Governor Pat McCrory, Attorney General Roy Cooper, and the University of North Carolina system. The new law passed by the state legislature declared that classes of people who are not already protected by current state anti-discrimination statutes could not be protected by local ordinances.
As it clearly singles out members of the LGBTQ community, it's difficult to see it standing up in court. As the lawsuit argues, "H.B. 2 was motivated by an intent to treat LGBT people differently, and worse, than other people, including by stripping them of the protections afforded by the City of Charlotte’s Ordinance and precluding any local government from taking action to protect LGBT people against discrimination."
Read the entire lawsuit here via BuzzFeed.
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