IGF CultureWatch

Fortune notes that businesses responded with far more vigor to, and threatened boycotts over, Georgia’s narrowly scoped religious liberty bill than to North Carolina’s sweeping invalidation of current and future LGBT anti-discrimination provisions.

The reason: fear of being seen as supporting men in women’s bathrooms. The campaign against transgender rights is so effective it’s cutting gay rights off at the knees.

As I wrote in February, “It’s also likely that drawing a line in the sand around locker room use in public (including schools) and private facilities is going to sink future LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment.”

More. But wait, we were assured this would never happen….College Decides To Make ALL Bathrooms Gender-Neutral:

Instead of being classified as “men’s,” “women’s,” or single-occupancy restrooms, all facilities at the Cooper Union will carry descriptive signs describing exactly what lies within. Former men’s rooms, for instance, are now described as “urinals and stalls,” while former women’s rooms now carry the label “stalls only.” Regardless of their type, all bathrooms will be open to whomever wants to use them.

We were told bathrooms going gender-neutral was just rightwing scare-mongering aimed at the rubes.

North Carolina’s legislature voted, with GOP unanimity, to void all local LGBT anti-discrimination measures within the state. As NPR.org reports:

One word dominated the debate over the bill and the Charlotte ordinance before it: “bathroom.” Charlotte already protected residents from discrimination based on race, age, religion and gender. On Feb. 22, the city council voted to expand those protections to apply to sexual orientation and gender identity, too.

The most controversial element of Charlotte’s expanded ordinance was the fact that it would allow trans people to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

One-party state supporters will point to this, and a less onerous religious-liberty exemption bill for faith-based groups in Georgia, as indicating why LGBT voters and their allies should only support Republicans. I disagree, as noted in my last post. If there had been at least one, or preferably a few, LGBT-supportive Republicans in the GOP caucus, the outcome might have been different. At least the Republicans couldn’t have so easily painted the issue as a purely partisan one.

The GOP is going to have power—nationally, statewide and locally—from time to time, so the view that it should simply be opposed and not reformed doesn’t move me. And reform means supporting those Republicans who are with us.

One the broader issue, again we see the effective use of fear over transgender people and bathrooms. The left has never understood why the apparent threat to unisex bathrooms, locker rooms and showers has such power, and that’s why we keep losing. The battles for lesbian and gay rights took a few decades of education and engagement; this has not happened around transgender issues, and I include in this failure the farce of sensationalism around Caitlan Jenner. And so transgender rights become the battering ram to obliterate gay rights.

Finally, I think the North Carolina and Georgia bills are radically different. I support faith-based exemptions for religious groups (I’d even go further and support a right of religious dissent for private businesses that don’t want to provide expressive services for same-sex weddings). If LGBT activists weren’t going to the mat to oppose religious exemptions, such a compromise might be able to deter a nuclear option such as the one unleashed in North Carolina.

More. Gov. Nathan Deal vetos the Georgia law, which focused exclusively on religious freedom and was very different from what North Carolina passed, but was treated by the liberal media and LGBT activists as if it were the exact same thing.

I have no issues with the Georgia law per se, although the governor was also correct in noting that the bill’s supporters failed to provide examples in Georgia of the kind of discrimination against faith-based organizations and “certain providers of services” that the bill seeks to protect against (which, unstated, is due to the fact that Georgia lacks an LGBT anti-discrimination law).

Furthermore. As the Washington Post reports, it’s big business lobbying against religious conservatives on these measures. Progressives typically condemn business lobbying as the root of all evil but welcome it in this particular case.

A gay and lesbian wedding expo in Salt Lake City is an example of how businesses are making it known they’re open to doing same-sex weddings, reports the Washington Times:

With a string quartet playing on one side of the exhibit hall and pop music on the other side, gay and lesbian couples chatted with businesses showing off fancy wedding cakes, fun photo booths and elaborate floral arrangements. Karl Jennings and Chris Marrano were looking for a cake baker and photographer for their June wedding. … “We know that whoever is here isn’t going to turn us away because we’re gay,” Jennings said. “It’s very relaxing and makes you want to give people business here. I want support people who want to support us.”

Which is good for same-sex couples, and good for business:

For wedding-related businesses, gay marriages represent a growth market. Gaining a toehold requires spreading the word you’re open to LGBT weddings – and not just doing it for the money, said Annie Munk, who along with her wife Nicole Broberg rents photo booths for weddings.

“Couples need to feel comfortable with the person they’re working with and know that’s not going to be any judgment, or awkwardness or whispering behind the counter,” said Munk, owner of Utah Party Pix.

And that’s how voluntary transactions are supposed to work in a free society. The role of government is not to force small business providers to engage in expressive services that violate their religious faith; it’s to ensure equality under the law, as the U.S. Supreme Court just did when it voted unanimously on Monday to reverse an Alabama court ruling that refused to recognize a lesbian’s adoption that was granted in another state.

The New York Times is being disingenuous in talking about issues involving transgender-identifying high school students in terms of “bathrooms and other facilities” and then barely naming those other facilities so as to focus on restrooms. USA Today is a bit more honest in referencing “bathrooms and locker rooms,” since the issue here—and the impetus behind the discussed state legislation—is more about locker rooms and showers than restrooms, although restroom fears were used effectively in the defeat in Houston of an anti-discrimination provision.

I don’t believe activists are going to win public support for students who are physically male using the girl’s locker room and shower facilities, or who are female using the boy’s facilities. In this case, providing alternative private changing/showering facilities is not “just like segregation,” but a reasonable accommodation. The Obama administration, by threatening schools that want to provide such reasonable accommodations, is making matters worse.

It’s also likely that drawing a line in the sand around locker room use in public (including schools) and private facilities is going to sink future LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment, once upon a time. That, along with the addition of “public accommodations” in a way intended to force small businesses to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings despite religious objections.

But the defeat of future anti-discrimination measures will allow LGBT activists to continue claiming victim status and keep the money rolling in from the faithful, who are told the equivalent of anti-LGBT Jim Crow is just around the corner.