By Brittany Van Pelt, Contributor
House Bill 142, which was signed into law late last month by Governor Roy Cooper, repealed North Carolina’s controversial House Bill Two law. Yet, many have been asking if the law really holds significant change.
HB2
* Required transgender people to use the restroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificate.
* Prohibited local governments from imposing any requirement upon an employer pertaining to compensation of employees. This includes hours of labor, leave, benefits, payment of wages, and the well-being of minors in the workforce.
* Stated that of “any part of the bill falls, the rest will stand.”
* Stated that there is no longer any state law that protects from the discrimination based on race, religion, sex, color, national origin, or age.
HB142
* Allows transgender people to use the restroom of the gender they identify with.
* Restricts cities all NC cities from creating a nondiscrimination ordinance until December 2020.
* The General Assembly is the only body that can create a nondiscrimination ordinance.
* Can’t force privately owned businesses to follow the bathroom rules.
The ironic part about HB142 is that it only amends Part 1 of HB2. The other parts of the bill that are equally discriminatory to a vast amount of North Carolinians are still intact. Which begs the question, did Roy Cooper really help the NC LGBTQ community with this new bill?