Heritage Expert Applauds as NC Governor Fights to Uphold State Bathroom Law

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory today filed suit against the federal government, challenging the Department of Justice's (DOJ) contention that the state's new bathroom law - which regulates public bathroom access based on a person's biological sex - violates federal civil rights statutes.
Heritage Foundation expert Roger Severino, a former attorney at the DOJ Civil Rights Division, applauded the governor’s response and criticized his former colleagues.
"I'm very disappointed in my former colleagues at the Civil Rights Division," Severino said. "They know very well that when Congress banned sex discrimination in 1964 and 1972, it did not mean 'gender identity.' For them to suggest otherwise disrespects the very notion of the rule of law.
"State lawmakers acted to defend the commonsense privacy and safety interests of all North Carolinians in a way that would also accommodate people who identity as transgender, but the left has rejected this reasonable approach," Severino said. "They insist on nothing less than total victory."
"They're upset because they have lost some recent high-profile fights over religious freedom and bathroom privacy rights. And they've turned to their friends in the Administration for help in imposing their ideology on everyone rather to than to seek approval of their agenda via the ballot box."