Post by Logan on May 3, 2016 2:42:32 GMT -6
Is SC more progressive now that the bathroom bill has been defeated?
COLUMBIA, SC -- With the defeat of the bathroom bill in the South Carolina Senate, some are wondering if the state is now more progressive than its northern neighbor, which remains vexed by the law North Carolina lawmakers passed earlier this year.
Jeff Ayers, executive director of South Carolina Equality Coalition, which advocates lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender rights issues, said at the start of the year there were 11 anti-LGBT bills filed in the South Carolina Legislature. With a month left in the legislative session, he said, only one of those bills made it to full committee and none have advanced to the floor.
“South Carolina will be one of the only states in the deep South that has stopped all the LGBT bills at the committee level, where other states have advanced them to the other chamber and voted on them,” he said. “So I think on that point, we are more progressive. I think hearts and minds are changing on LGBT issues.”
Sen. Joel Lourie, a Columbia Democrat who opposed the bathroom bill calling it discriminatory, said the removal of the Confederate flag last year from the Statehouse grounds as well as the failure of the bathroom bill make the state more progressive.
Read more here: www.heraldonline.com/news/local/article75091102.html
COLUMBIA, SC -- With the defeat of the bathroom bill in the South Carolina Senate, some are wondering if the state is now more progressive than its northern neighbor, which remains vexed by the law North Carolina lawmakers passed earlier this year.
Jeff Ayers, executive director of South Carolina Equality Coalition, which advocates lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender rights issues, said at the start of the year there were 11 anti-LGBT bills filed in the South Carolina Legislature. With a month left in the legislative session, he said, only one of those bills made it to full committee and none have advanced to the floor.
“South Carolina will be one of the only states in the deep South that has stopped all the LGBT bills at the committee level, where other states have advanced them to the other chamber and voted on them,” he said. “So I think on that point, we are more progressive. I think hearts and minds are changing on LGBT issues.”
Sen. Joel Lourie, a Columbia Democrat who opposed the bathroom bill calling it discriminatory, said the removal of the Confederate flag last year from the Statehouse grounds as well as the failure of the bathroom bill make the state more progressive.
Read more here: www.heraldonline.com/news/local/article75091102.html