Sponsor of SC anti-transgender bill taking hits from both parties

Sen. Lee Bright is catching flack from all sides for his transphobic bill.

In reading the following news report from news channel WYFF4 NBC I think it would be safe to assume the anti-transgender bill proposed in South Carolina by Sen. Lee Bright is very unpopular.

Are you sitting down? If so, then proceed to read:

The three Republican candidates who are vying for Sen. Lee Bright's state senate seat in District 12 are using Bright's recently introduced "Bathroom Bill" as ammunition against him.

 "I do not believe the bill is needed here in South Carolina," businessman and Senate candidate David McCraw said during a news conference. "I agree with the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce when they said, 'Sen. Bright is trying to create a political crisis that doesn't exist to save his political career.'"
Bright's bill, S. 1203, would assign the use of bathrooms according to "biological sex" instead of gender identification. It would prevent local governments from creating ordinances that allow transgender people to use the bathrooms of their choice.

Other candidates who are running for Bright's seat also oppose his bill.

"The transgender bathroom ordinance being pushed by special interests has no place in South Carolina," Republican Senate candidate Scott Talley said. "While I agree with Senator Bright in opposing a transgender bathroom ordinance, his proposed law is redundant and unnecessary."

"We don't want to do anything to jeopardize economic development in South Carolina," Republican Senate candidate Lisa Cooley Scott said. "(Bright) is jumping on the bandwagon to grab headlines, because he has done nothing in the Senate."

A Senate committee hearing on the bill is Wednesday morning and according to ABC News Channel 6, a Democrat Senator, Joel Lourie, said that he will do everything in his power to block it.

That should be interesting, seeing that the chair of the committee, Sen. Kevin Bryant, a co-sponsor of the bill, said that he intends to advance the bill forward even if the subcommittee doesn't approve.

The irony of that is all of this bickering could be moot. Gov. Nikki Haley has already said that the bill is not needed in South Carolina and the speculation is that if the bill is passed, she may veto it.

Nevertheless, regardless of the reasons why (and many of them definitely aren't noble), I never thought I would EVER live to see the day when Republicans in South Carolina attack another Republican for being unnecessarily mean to the lgbt community.

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