BRACK: Why lawmakers shouldn’t fall for a not-so-bright proposal

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  Legislators shouldn’t get sidetracked by a narrow, right-wing effort to push new anti-gay legislation through the General Assembly.  There’s too much vital work that needs to be done — from a real fix for potholes in roads and substantive reform for ethics laws to improving education, providing better health care and reducing poverty.

Unfortunately, state Sen. Lee Bright, R-Spartanburg, wants to divert everyone away from real issues, again.  Known far and wide as a reactionary lawmaker who pushes over-the-top proposals with the zeal of a Neanderthal, Bright has ripped off and introduced an anti-gay measure from North Carolina that would force people to use bathrooms associated with their birth genders.

This is a solution in desperate search of a problem.  Bright offers a bill that just seeks to create headlines to feed red meat to homophobic zealots without making headway on things that really matter.

Ladies and gentlemen, South Carolina should be better than descending into this gutter clogged by right-wing paranoia that unjustly preys upon people’s fears.

If lawmakers don’t quickly reject Bright’s kind of nonsense, South Carolina could suffer.  North Carolina already has been skewered in national media as a non-welcoming place, costing it jobs and business from other states.  Compare that to Georgia.  Earlier this year, it passed an anti-gay “religious liberty” bill, but Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed it after major corporations rallied against the measure.

Just as in Georgia, big businesses in the Palmetto State don’t want legislation like Bright proposes.  Why?  Because they know it will hurt the state’s competitive environment to work with and attract global partners like BMW, Mercedes, Boeing, Volvo and Michelin.  Passing Bright’s legislation would give pause to any company thinking of bringing jobs here — just like is happening in North Carolina and Mississippi, which also recently passed anti-LGBT legislation.

State Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison criticized Bright for stooping to a “new low” by filing the bill that “mimics the hate and fear-fueled law” that North Carolina lawmakers, who introduced and passed it in a single day.  It was signed by their governor on the same day.

“Bright must be deaf to the outcry from North Carolinians across the political spectrum and the business community who know discrimination hurts, not helps, our communities,” Harrison said.  “This stunt is incredibly short-sighted.”

Gov. Nikki Haley, who endorsed Bright for his courage in a 2012 GOP primary, pointed out to reporters this week that the senator’s flash-in-the-pan proposal isn’t needed because of a 1999 law passed by the legislature.

“What I will tell you is in South Carolina, we are blessed because we don’t have to mandate respect or kindness or responsibility in this state,” she said. “And so I’ll tell you that law has worked perfectly. I don’t know of any example that we’ve had a problem on and South Carolina is going to continue to focus on ethics and on roads and on jobs and on all of those things because we think we’ve got that part covered.”

It’s something that the governor and folks at S.C. Equality, the state’s largest LGBT rights group, might share views.

“We already have laws in place that make it illegal for anyone to enter a restroom to harm or harass people, or invade their privacy,” the organization said in a press statement.  “Police already use these laws to keep people safe, make arrests, and hold criminals accountable.

“All of us know what it’s like to urgently need to use the restroom.  But this law is designed to make it impossible for transgender people to go about their daily lives like other people.”

Last year, South Carolina showed what it was really made of when lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike — banded together after the Emanuel AME massacre to finally remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds.  It was hard.  It was controversial.  But it got done because it was in the best interest of the state.

Let’s hope our state lawmakers can remember that victory and run out the clock on Bright’s ill-conceived plagiarism so we don’t get a black eye — and so we do the right thing.

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