April 1, 2017

Putting the NC in NCAA?

It was a buzzer-beating shot, but when legislators tried to appease the NCAA, no one in North Carolina won. The “fake repeal” of HB2 (as liberals called it) was — as far as most people were concerned — worse than doing nothing. Desperate to pass something before the NCAA’s midnight deadline, lawmakers attempted to piece together a bill that reset the state’s bathroom, locker room, and shower policies to the pre-2016 standard. To the Left’s frustration, also bars anyone but the state from enacting gender-free ordinances like Charlotte’s for at least three years.

It was a buzzer-beating shot, but when legislators tried to appease the NCAA, no one in North Carolina won. The “fake repeal” of HB2 (as liberals called it) was — as far as most people were concerned — worse than doing nothing. Desperate to pass something before the NCAA’s midnight deadline, lawmakers attempted to piece together a bill that reset the state’s bathroom, locker room, and shower policies to the pre-2016 standard. To the Left’s frustration, also bars anyone but the state from enacting gender-free ordinances like Charlotte’s for at least three years.

In the tight circle of LGBT activists, groups seethed. “This is not a repeal of HB2,” an incensed ACLU said. “North Carolina lawmakers should be ashamed of this backroom deal that continues to play politics with the lives of LGBT North Carolinians.” HRC’s Chad Griffin launched attack after attack on his twitter feed, arguing that “This new law does not repeal HB2. Instead, it institutes a statewide prohibition on equality by banning non-discrimination protections across North Carolina and fuels the flames of anti-transgender hate.”

But the biggest question coming out of Thursday’s fiasco isn’t how liberals feel. Or even conservatives. It’s about how the one group the measure was tailored to please — the NCAA — would respond. And even now, no one knows. In the greatest of ironies, legislators rushed to make a bad deal they aren’t even sure the organization will support! At the Final Four press conference in Arizona, all eyes were on NCAA President Mark Emmert, who took as many questions on HB 142 as he did about the tournament semi-finals. Until the board meets, he told reporters, the organization has no official position on the deal. “We’ve tried to do a number of analyses, laying them all side by side, and it very quickly becomes very, very difficult. What distinguished North Carolina was, as you pointed out, there were four distinct problems that the board had with that bill. They’ve removed some of those now but now, as you point out, not all of them. And the question the board will be debating [is]: If you remove two or three of them, is that enough — relative to other states?”

Although Emmert warned that the decision would be a “very difficult one,” he insists the group is just happy “they have a bill to debate and discuss. The politics of this in North Carolina are obviously very, very difficult. But they have passed a bill now and it will be a great opportunity for our board to sit and debate and discuss it.” One thing’s for sure: they won’t be considering it in a vacuum. HRC, SPLC, ACLU, NAACP, Planned Parenthood, Equality NC, Lambda Legal, and other extremists left little doubt where they stand. From the pages of USA Today to local outlets like the Charlotte Observer, liberals said the message from the NCAA to North Carolina should be simple: “pound sand.” How seriously the association will take their advice (one would assume very seriously, since LGBT activists have had the NCAA on a string for years) remains to be seen.

Conservatives, meanwhile, were already irked by one of Emmert’s closing statements, which suggested that the NCAA was never trying to meddle in North Carolina politics. “I think there’s one other point that needs to be really clear. And that is the NCAA does not consider itself — the board, myself, the staff — does not consider itself an entity that has any business telling a state what their laws should be. State’s laws and community’s laws are the business of their elected leaders and the citizens of those states.” How he said that with a straight face, I have no idea. What does he call an ultimatum for state leaders to repeal a law? Exchanging pleasantries? The NCAA knew exactly what it was doing when it took North Carolina’s tournaments hostage.

For now, the business community may be the only ones happy with the bill, which is almost comical — since they were the ones least affected by it! The law had already given executives the freedom to open their bathrooms and locker rooms to anyone (an option most refused). Instead, they railed against HB2 while their own facilities went untouched. Where the debate goes from now is anyone’s guess. We know that the only compromise the Left will accept is the total surrender of those who oppose its lunacy. And as willing as state leaders may be to grovel to the NCAA, voters won’t be nearly as indulgent. They understand that basketball may be important, but the privacy and safety of their children isn’t a game.

Originally published here.

A Vice Precedent to Support

If the worst thing people can say about Mike Pence is that he’s a good husband, then he’s accomplished something very few politicians have. Unfortunately, we live in a day and age when marriage is rarely revered — in definition or practice — so the idea that the vice president would take intentional steps to protect his own has apparently come as a shock to some of the elitist media. Probably no one was more surprised by the attention the Pences’ personal boundaries are receiving than the woman who wrote the story in the first place: The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker. It was just a small portion of a generous profile piece on the vice president’s wife, but it soon turned into the biggest storyline in Washington.

“Mike Pence never dines alone [with] a woman not his wife, nor does he attend events [with] alcohol [without] his wife,” Parker tweeted as one of the many sneak-peaks about her piece. Social media lit up with scorching comments about the couple’s decision — one that most of us would agree could stand to be emulated in this city. The Pence-bashing caught the attention of the media, which seemed just as surprised as the rest of us at the attention Mike was getting for showing his marriage the respect it deserved. To some, like The New York Times’s Nate Cohn, it pointed to the great gulf in today’s society. “The response to Pence’s unwillingness to be alone with women is, from my [point of view], the most surprising and eye-opening cultural divide in a while.”

With tweets too insulting to repeat, liberals accused the vice president of everything from misogyny to sexual compulsion. These days, I suppose the simplest morality is the most confounding for liberals. I’ve known Mike for 20 years, and I can tell you that his marriage and family have been a consistent priority before he was even a member of Congress. When he was elected to the U.S. House, he intentionally moved his family here to DC so they would be close — a choice some politicians, Mollie Hemingway points out, probably regret not making. “Many folks on the Left,” David French writes, “find this entire line of thinking absurd. They don’t see men and women as ‘men and women’ (what is gender anyway?) but as ‘people.’ …So [to them] it’s thus strange and sexist to argue that men and women can’t live and work side-by-side in any number of close and intense circumstances without causing sexual tension and drama.”

That doesn’t mean Christians never succumb to temptation, but it does mean they have a greater awareness of it. What the Pences have done — out of respect not just for each other but for his female staffers — is create an extra line of defense against the weaknesses of human nature. Not only is that admirable, it’s advisable. “He sounds like he’s a smart man who understands that infidelity is something that threatens every marriage and must be guarded against…” Hemingway writes. “Pence’s smart tactics for avoiding the kind of marital failure that could destroy him, his wife, their family, and the lives of those around them [shouldn’t be mocked — they should be commended]!”

And Karen isn’t the only one who benefits from this prudence. So do Americans, who have been conditioned to expect sexual scandal in Washington. Mike’s personal values show the utmost esteem for his family and the office of the vice president. It’s a tragic commentary on our culture that something as sensible as not having one-on-one dinners with women is scoffed as antiquated or old-fashioned. As usual, the Left doesn’t want guardrails on the road of life; it wants more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. In today’s world when some on the Left can hardly wait to celebrate the downfall of another “moralizer,” even the appearance of wrongdoing can be devastating.

More than anything, this reveals the outright hostility toward religious freedom in America. The Left sees this as the foolishness of faith. It thinks it’s okay for a pastor to have this rule, but not a public figure or a businessman. But where do you draw the line for living and working according to your beliefs? Secularists want us to shed our values when we’re outside the four walls of the church. And yet those values are almost always in the best interest of society as a whole. Fidelity is one of the greatest weapons for protecting the family, which — as much as liberals despise it — is still the cornerstone of civilization.

When a marriage ends, it doesn’t just affect one home, it affects several. So while risking disgrace and ruin may be an acceptable option for the Left, the Pences choose wisdom. And in a nation starved for role models, we should congratulate them for it.

Originally published here.

A Therapeutic Victory for Parents

When FRC’s Peter Sprigg speaks, legislators listen! A month after delivering some of the best testimony in the sexual reorientation therapy debate, the New Hampshire House killed a bill to outlaw the counseling for young people. By a 13-8 vote, the state’s Health, Human Services, and Elder Affairs Committee sent LGBT activists packing after an intense effort to ban the voluntary therapy. “On numerous occasions,” said state Rep. Mark Pearson (R), who helped found the New Creation Healing Center, “young people have wished to explore with our counselors or senior medical personnel various sexual and romantic feelings. Had this bill passed, such helpful discussions would have subjected our professionals to discipline by their respective state licensing boards.”

In the end, legislators agreed that the measure would have severely limited parents’ rights and, just as importantly, deprived kids of the help they earnestly want. As Peter pointed out at the time, the attacks on this kind of counseling usually have nothing to do with their effectiveness and everything to do with politics. Thank goodness that in New Hampshire, common sense — not political correctness — prevailed! (To read Peter’s full testimony, click here.)

Originally published here.


This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.

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