As the "fair & balanced" news network for traditional homophobic values, is it any surprise that Brian Kilmeade would provide a platform for North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to spread his now patented lies to defend his state's new law which enshrines discrimination against the LGBT community? Oh, and Gov. Cuomo was attacked, too.
The new NC law, hurriedly passed in response to a Charlotte anti-discrimination statute, prohibits any future ordinances while nullifying those in existence. Because the law prohibits any accommodations for transgender folks (including public school students), those who are transgender are now, by law, required to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate.
Suffice to say that this has caused an uproar in the business and sports communities, some of whom are now rethinking their presence in the state. NY's Gov. Cuomo has banned all non-essential state travel to North Carolina. So McCrory is feeling some heat and that's why he took to Fox & Friends which provided him with a supportive platform from which to whine and lie.
Brian Kilmeade started the propaganda session with "get ready for this one." Without mentioning the other governors who have done the same thing,he reported on Cuomo's ban "over the new bathroom law." (The law goes way beyond bathrooms.) Kilmeade noted that "oddly enough" Cuomo is encouraging visits to Cuba which has a bad human rights record. The banner underscored the agitprop: "Cuban Controversy, NY Gov. Bans Travel to NC, But Visited Cuba." He asked "Pat" to explain the "rule that's causing the controversy with Gov. Cuomo."
McCrory explained that the law overturned the Charlotte ordinance because of it's "demand" that men be allowed to use women's bathrooms and showers. (Fact - the Charlotte ordinance protected the LGBT community from discriminatory practices by businesses. It also allowed trans folks to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity.) He asserted that "we believe" that "if you have anatomy of a man, you shouldn't use the women's rest rooms, even in the schools...it's basic common sense, it's etiquette, privacy that we've had for decades." He whined that "it's amazing that the national, politically police have descended on my state and unfairly smeared my state."
He noted that HoustonTexas "rejected the exact same ordinance" which is a lie. In Houston, the anti-discrimination statutes were blocked from taking affect. North Carolina's law "requires" discrimination. Kilmeade said "right" as McCrory whined about the "hypocrisy" of the "corporate and media elite." Kilmeade Foxsplained: "So you're you saying, the sex you're born with, let's go with that picture on the men's and women's bathrooms. If it's a little dress and you're a woman, you go in that one, back and forth."
After Gov. Cuomo was accused of "demagoguery" by going to Cuba and then telling people not to go to North Carolina, McCrory repeated his schtick about how "we believe in common sense, privacy laws" for bathrooms." Kilmeade: "right." When McCrory mentioned that New York doesn't have laws protecting the transgender community (a specious comparison because NY doesn't have any laws which, like North Carolina, discriminate against them), he joked that Cuomo should boycott his own state. Kilmeade quipped "a lot of people would look forward to that." He grinned as McCrory said that "North Carolina is open for business and we're not in favor of discrimination but we favor common sense privacy laws just like the city of Houston does."
In discussing the meaning of "etiquette," vis-a-vis McCrory's statements, the Legal Director of the North Carolina ACLU says it best, "truly nothing says standing up for etiquette like gratuitous attacks on those already marginalized in the state.” Nice to see Fox News being so polite!