Why Forest Fights for HB2

by | Feb 14, 2017 | Politics | 10 comments

Dan Forest hasn’t just supported HB2. He has been conductor of the crazy train. Even as Phil Berger and Tim Moore slithered toward repeal, our Lieutenant Governor has stood fast with the NC Family Policy Council and other anti-LGBT ultras. He’s also running for governor next cycle.

Believe it or not, there is a logic to this.

You could be forgiven for skepticism. Ceteris paribus, Forest should face daunting odds. Only four out of forty-two presidential-year  gubernatorial challengers have won since 1992. HB2 helped add Cooper to the sparsely populated win column, and it would seem odd for Forest to deepen his own disadvantage.

Odd, but not inexplicable. First, Forest is a zealot. There’s no social-conservative cause for which he won’t fight with the fervor of a warrior-priest. So much so that he openly said that half a billion dollars were a just price to keep this law on the books. To walk away from HB2 now would to be betray his political identity and, apparently, his far-right moral conscience. He will never back down.

His burning reactionary heart is complimented by cold, political calculation. Forest is a pure base-mobilization candidate. With his views on the full display that a gubernatorial race would place them, he could not expect to win many persuadables. Victory would depend on getting his religious base angry and activated. And nothing would do that like the phantom fear of bathroom perfidy.

In a sense, Forest sits where McCrory ended up last fall: Painted into a social-issues corner, unable to escape the controversy of HB2. The difference is that Forest wants to be there. It could make him look principle, or brand him as even more toxic and extreme than he already is. I’d bet on the latter.

10 Comments

  1. Ebrun

    Hey Dg, didn’t you tell us how badly Trump was going to lose last November and that the Democrats were going to take control of the U.S. Senate? Your prognostication skills need a little fine tuning. And BTW, I believe I predicted on this blog that the GOP would control the U.S. Senate by a 52-48 margin. You ridiculed that prediction that turned to be right on the money.

    Oh, and also, did you see where the U.S. Department of Justice just withdrew the government’s appeal of the Texas Judge’s ruling placing a nationwide injunction on enforcing the Obama Administration’s guidance on transgender bathroom access in public schools? What do you think the chances of SCOTUS upholding that directive are once Trump’s nominee joins the court? Oh, and on another favorite issue of NC liberals, whatever happened to that lower court ruling mandating that the state redistrict and hold new legislative elections this year?

    • ebrun

      Good news, D.g. The U.S. Department of Justice just rescinded the Obama Administration’s guidance on transgender bathroom access. Guess the Texas judge’s injunction is no longer necessary. And the U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the 4th Circuit’s ruling on the Virginia transgender locker room access case. You better hope Gorsuch is not seated on the court when that case is heard.

      • Ebrun

        Not only are you not a very effective spin doctor, D.g., you legal knowledge of this issue seems to be lacking. The Obama Administration’s guidance on transgender bathroom access was not ignored, it was revoked. . And the ACLU, the LGBT lobby, national Democratic leaders and the Human Rights Campaign and many other left wing interest groups are all publicly seething and are condemning the Administration for this new interpretation of Title 1X. They don’t seem to be nearly as sanguine about this change in policy as you claim to be.

  2. D J B

    Why does Gov. Cooper sign a executive order removing Gov. McCoy executive order? He can do that today.
    Why did Gov. Cooper not support the bill in December to repeal HB2?

    How do we deal with girls and boys in middle schools and high schools being in the same locker room or shower?
    No one deals with that issue.

    • Ebrun

      You won’t find any liberals dealing with girls and boys having access to the same school locker rooms or showers on this blog, D J B. You’re reading the opinions of the far left who put identify politics way ahead of sensible behavior. The LGBT lobby has ingratiated itself with the far left wing of the Democratic Party. For support of their extreme agenda, they provide influence, money and votes to liberal politicians and left wing interest groups.

  3. TY Thompson

    Why should he change? He got more votes than anyone else in North Carolina including that Trump guy. As for the notion that HB2 sent McCrory packing……there’s an old saying about the dangers of believing your own propaganda. Since Cooper is electing to keep McCrory’s executive order regarding HB2 in place for now (until he succumbs to progressive pressure, anyway), it appears that he understands HB2’s true popularity as the Elon poll shows, and is avoiding that trap.

  4. Cornsticksnothushpuppies

    I wish someone would ask, for once, if all this talk about “protecting women and children” was really so important, such a major public safety issue, how come HB2 doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism whatsoever, or any penalty for violating it? These omissions, it seems to me, are the best evidence that this whole sorry chapter was always ultimately about nothing else than politicians trying to advance their own careers.

    • Jay Ligon

      A strange law that cannot be enforced and has no penalty for the violation of it. An ugly step-child of perverse politics and religious voodoo. The legislature cannot point to a single child protected from the ambiguous boogie man.

  5. Stephen Lewis, Sr.

    The difference Forest really does believe in this issue. I don”t think Pat McCray believes in anything but himself. I am not sure if that will help Forest or not but it is a difference.

    • Russell

      Corrupt ideologues as arisen in so many positions of power will make us all poorer if not kill us. There is a case to be made for the willfully stupid as an ethical corruption in and of itself.

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