RALEIGH, N.C. — Repealing North Carolina’s law limiting LGBT protections at the close of a bitter election year was supposed to heal blows to the economy and perhaps open a truce in the culture wars in at least one corner
RALEIGH, N.C. — Repealing North Carolina’s law limiting LGBT protections at the close of a bitter election year was supposed to heal blows to the economy and perhaps open a truce in the culture wars in at least one corner of the divided United States.
The failure of state lawmakers to follow through instead shows how much faith each side has lost in the other, as Americans segregate themselves into communities of us and them, defined by legislative districts that make compromise unlikely.
The deal was supposedly reached with input from top politicians and industry leaders: Charlotte agreed to eliminate its anti-discrimination ordinance on the condition that state lawmakers then repeal the legislation known as House Bill 2, which had been a response to Charlotte’s action.
But bipartisan efforts to return both the city and state to a more harmonious past fell apart amid mutual distrust, and neither side seemed to worry about retribution in the next election.
With GOP map-drawers drawing most legislative districts to be uncompetitively red or blue, politicians see little downside to avoiding a negotiated middle-ground.
And since the day Republicans passed and signed it into law last March, HB2 has reflected these broad divisions in society.
The failed repeal shows the same polarization, said David Lublin, a Southern politics expert in American University’s School of Public Affairs.
North Carolina had been “seen as the forefront of the new South,” focusing on education and economic development, and wasn’t “viewed as crazy-right wing or crazy-left wing,” Lublin said. Keeping the law in effect, he said, “reverses that impression.”
