The Patriot Post® · NC Hammers Back: You Can't Touch This Law

It’s amazing with technology like ours that people still refuse to take a few minutes to read for themselves a bill like North Carolina’s. With the facts just a click away, there’s no excuse for the liberal media to continue misrepresenting H.B. 2. Yet that’s exactly what they’re doing — almost a month after Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) signed the bill into law. Unfortunately, the truth about the measure — that it gives businesses the freedom to set their own bathroom policies — doesn’t fit the Left’s narrative. So they ignore it.

[Sunday] on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd took his interview with McCrory down a familiar path, distorting the most basic aspects of the law. “Does it bother you,” Todd said at one point, “that basically North Carolina and Mississippi is the only other state to side with you on this?” For starters, McCrory stopped him, Mississippi passed a religious liberty law — not a privacy measure. Secondly, he fired back, a lot more states agree with North Carolina than don’t. “This is not just a North Carolina debate. This is a national debate that’s just come on in literally the last three months… We have 29 states that also don’t have this type of mandate on private business, including the state of New York [one of its most vocal opponents].”

Still, Todd argued, what the legislature did in overturning Charlotte’s ordinance was an overreach. If anyone is overreaching, McCrory pointed out, it’s the people who think the government should force companies to adopt their confused ideas of gender and sexuality. CEOs are free to do that on their own — but, the governor said firmly, “It’s not government’s business to tell the private sector what their bathroom, locker room, or shower practices should be. Not only the private business, but also the YMCA and other nonprofit organizations… I don’t think the government ought to be the H.R. director for every business, whether it be in Charlotte or whether it be in Greensboro or whether it be in Boone, North Carolina.”

As the mayor of Charlotte for 14 years, McCrory knows where voters side on this issue — and it isn’t with cultural bullies. In a strong rebuttal to the Washington Post, the governor explained that the same activists beating up North Carolina in the press are conveniently ignoring their own hypocrisy. “[T]he Human Rights Campaign has led a coordinated assault and smear campaign. This national special-interest group, which is funded by anonymous donors, is attempting to bully companies, entertainers, and anyone else who disagrees with its agenda. Our state is unfairly being used as its political pawn. However, the HRC remains silent while the same individuals and organizations sell their products, make their products or take entertainment dollars from countries like China, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore — countries with deplorable human rights records, especially toward the gay and lesbian community.”

On Sunday, I took my own turn trying to set the record straight on laws like Mississippi’s. There, Governor Phil Byrant (R) and state leaders agreed that the government shouldn’t be in the business of punishing people who disagree with same-sex marriage — whether they’re a public official, entrepreneur, minister, or wedding vendor. In a sit-down with “Matter of Fact’s” Fernando Espuelas (video below) I tried explaining whose civil rights were being violated in cases like Aaron and Melissa Klein’s. “Having business is a commercial activity that does not exclude groups,” Fernando argued. But then what you’re doing, I explained, is limiting religious freedom at the door of the marketplace. If you listen closely to his answer, you’ll see where the Left is going next with this agenda — which is to threaten the business licenses of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to same-sex marriage.

That’s the problem with people like Governor John Kasich (R-Ohio), who keep telling Americans to “get over it” “chill out,” and “move on.” The Left doesn’t plan on “getting over it” until every person is forced to celebrate this perversion. So in reality, what Kasich is advocating is for Christians to move on. That’s difficult to do when the government is taking away your home or life’s savings.

Fortunately for Americans, other leaders do understand what’s at stake in this debate is nothing less than our freedom. Take a minute and thank one of them, Governor Pat McCrory, for continuing to defend the First Amendment rights of North Carolina — and being a shining example to other states in the process. Send your social media thanks by clicking here. Also, if you’re part of a Culture Impact Team in the hundreds of churches FRC has in North Carolina that helped get H.B. 2 passed, circulate this to your members and encourage them to show their appreciation too!

Originally published here.

A Cure for What Fails You

The November elections spell the end for a lot more than the Obama administration. It could mean the end of one of its worst mistakes as well. The two-term failure of Obamacare may not last beyond its namesake, experts suggest, now that insurers are jumping the sinking ship. A few months ago, plenty of people panicked when UnitedHealth Group — crippled by more than $1 billion in exchange losses — floated the prospect of exiting the president’s bomb of a coverage system. Now, it seems the company is taking the first steps to a full-fledged exodus by pulling out of Georgia and Arkansas in 2017.

Others, who have intently watched the nation’s largest insurer, are also threatening to leave. Humana executives say they may also sever ties, which, the Motley Fool warns, could lead to the law’s complete collapse. Already, they write, “In 2016, the risk corridor wound up being underfunded by more than $2 billion, leading more than half of Obamacare’s approved health care cooperatives to shut their doors… If the largest health insurer in the country pulls out of Obamacare because it can’t turn a profit, then what sort of sustainable future does the program really have?”

With enrollment well below the government’s expectations and premiums more unaffordable than ever, it’s no wonder House Republicans are kicking their Obamacare replacement plans into high gear. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has been part of a core group working to replace the president’s miserable excuse for a health system since it became law. But finding suitable alternative has been a complicated process, but Upton promises that conservatives are making good headway. “Give us a little time,” he said, “another month or so.”

In the meantime, if the market doesn’t destroy Obamacare, the current crop of presidential candidates will. Only Hillary Clinton has said she would leave the unpopular law in place. Even so, Motley points out, it’s only a matter of time before the fragile system collapses on itself. “The only near-certainty at the moment is that Obamacare’s future looks as a shaky as ever.” And anyone who’s a fan of freedom, conscience, and lower premiums should be happy to hear that!

Originally published here.