Family Research Council anti-lgbt hysteria helped cover up NC law's attack on employment, wages

FRC head Tony Perkins

In a statement on its webpage, the Family Research Council celebrated the passage of Mississippi's very broad religious liberty (anti-lgbt law) and NC's recently passed one:

Thanks to Governor Phil Bryant (R), facts -- not fear -- won out in Mississippi! Earlier today, Bryant signed the "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act" into law over the threats from corporate America and LGBT activists. After the Left's tantrum over North Carolina, where leaders denied men access to girls' restrooms and showers, most people started to see the liberal agenda for the extremism it is. Now, with the enactment of H.B. 1523, Mississippi is responding by passing religious liberty legislation that should be a model for every state.

Despite Big Business bullies, a media misinformation campaign, and liberal scaremongers, Governor Bryant helped to fan the flames of a national pushback to the Left's intolerance on the issue of marriage. Under this law, churches aren't the only ones protected from government punishment for their beliefs -- so are businesses, wedding vendors, and even public officials. While the threats from corporate America continue to roll in to North Carolina and Mississippi, the reality is that after Houston voters killed the city's hugely unpopular bathroom bill in November, the momentum has been on the side of common sense.

Thanks to his tremendous courage, Governor Bryant -- like Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) -- has cemented his legacy as one of freedom. In the face of some of the stiffest pressure of his career, he stood strong for the rights of his state to live and work according to their faith. And while Mississippi -- like North Carolina -- will have to weather a temporary storm, in the end, both governors will be rewarded with their voters' support and a legacy of courage. Years from now, no one will remember if a sporting event was held in a particular city -- but those communities would be reminded daily in a thousand ways if their freedom to believe was lost because of the political cowardice of political leaders.

Meanwhile, PayPal may be the Left's friend, but it's no pal of North Carolina's! The money transfer service announced this morning that it's canceling the company's Charlotte expansion because the state won't force young girls to share bathrooms and showers with grown men.

FRC not only glosses over the severity of the Mississippi law, but it also continues  the lie about how NC's law keeps young girls from sharing bathrooms and showers with grown men. That's how FRC has continuously framed NC's law. Public safety. Protecting girls and women in showers and bathrooms. And regardless how many times that lie has been refuted, FRC continues to trot it out in a annoyingly tone deaf fashion.

Aside from the fact that the lie demonizes our transgender brothers and sisters, FRC's way of framing NC's law takes on insidious meaning because the group omitted pertinent parts of the law involving income and employment. According to a recent issue of Forbes, there are other things which NC's new law does:

There has been at least some discussion of how the new law prohibits a local government or any “political subdivision of the state” from establishing gender identity as a class protected from employment discrimination. What has received little attention is how an entire section of the law has nothing explicit to do with issues of gender identity. Instead, it prohibits local governments from affecting employment conditions in private companies. Part 2 of the law, which reworks the state’s “Wage and Hour Act,” prevents any local government, whether city, town, or county, from regulating wage levels, hours of labor, or benefits of private employers.

 . . . A local government still can control benefits and compensation of its own employees, although it cannot place any requirements on contractors it uses to carry out work. In the past, according to the sections struck, a local government could place requirements on a contractor so long as it could have imposed the same requirements on all its employees.

 . . . Some of the advances in battling income inequality have come at the local level. Cities and counties have set higher minimum wages, regulated the number of hours employers must provide employees, required that employers give advanced notice of hours so employees can manage their personal and other work schedules, and instituted mandatory sick time.

Under HB2, that is not possible in North Carolina.

In other words, HB2 prevents local governments in the state from controlling their own minimum wage rates, as well as times of work and benefits. And income inequality is a real problem in the state. According to North Carolina Justice Center:

Over the past 30 years, North Carolina has experienced growing wage inequality, with high-wage earners enjoying income gains while middle- and low-income families saw their wages stagnate or fall. The growth in income inequality has serious implications for all North Carolinians. More unequal societies are more likely to have low levels of economic mobility and enjoy shorter the periods of growth. In contrast, research has found that cutting income inequality in half can double the length of an economic expansion.

With its spinning phony stories of transgender predators lurking in bathrooms and locker rooms, FRC diverts everyone's attention from real horror stories such as the family down the street losing their home, a single mother not being able to make enough money to make ends meet for her and her children, or the family who has worked and saved but still can't get ahead.

The problems facing the American family have nothing to do with scary stories of "bathroom predators" or gays "targeting" supposed Christian businesses. But it does have a lot to do with income equality, the constantly disappearing middle-class, and the inability to make a decent wage; problems with FRC are making worse by deception.

FRC claims to be working for the American family. What are they working to do? Put more American families in the poorhouse?