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McCrory on HB2: 'I can't believe we're talking about this'

Gov. Pat McCrory says HB2 was "an issue the left started," criticizing Obama administration policy.

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Gov. Pat McCrory
By
Mark Binker
RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Pat McCrory appeared on Fox News' "The Kelly File" Thursday night to defend House Bill 2.

The conversation with host Megyn Kelly focused exclusively on the provision that deals with public bathroom and locker room accommodations. Sections of the bill dealing with the right to sue in court or broader discrimination protections were not discussed.

As he has done before, McCrory put responsibility for the law on the Charlotte City Council, which passed an ordinance that would have required local businesses to allow transgender individuals to use the locker room or restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. The new law prohibits cities from making such rules and requires that multi-user facilities in public buildings, such as schools, bet set aside according to the sex on a person's birth certificate.

"We ought to allow the schools to make special arrangements for those people," McCrory said, slamming an Obama administration policy that is in line with the Charlotte ordinance and at issue in an ongoing Virginia lawsuit.

Kelly pressed McCrory several times on the rhetoric surrounding House Bill 2.

"What is the fear about the transgender situation in the bathrooms?" she asked.

"Mine is not a fear," McCrory responded. "I don't like the rhetoric that's often used on the right saying what the fear is. It's a basic expectation of privacy that I hear from moms or dads or families that, when their daughter or son goes into a facility, a restroom, they expect people of that gender, that biological sex, to be the only other ones in that."

McCrory also used the occasion to accuse PayPal of "selective hypocrisy" for refusing to expand a location in North Carolina, even though the company does business in other countries with harsh anti-LGBT laws.

"This is where I think the corporate elite have to be very careful about getting involved in politics. It's inconsistent outrage – it's selective outrage – and they might need to examine their own practices in other states that have the exact same rules that North Carolina does," he said.

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