BILL O'REILLY (HOST): Why does North Carolina want these laws?
ERIN EHRLICH: Well, it's pre-textual, they're arguing that people would feel unsafe if we were allowing transgender man to use female restrooms.
O'REILLY: But how would they even know?
EHRLICH: Exactly. How would they even know?
[...]
O'REILLY: But the theory that the governor of North Carolina is operating under by signing it is that it protects who?
EHRLICH: It protects women?
LIS WIEHL: Girls.
EHRLICH: It's confusing, it's confusing, and you're bringing up a very good point.
O’REILLY: It protects women from what?
WIEHL: The governor says that he’s worried about men, basically, who are identifying as girls going into girls’ locker rooms, girls’ bathrooms.
O’REILLY: Right.
WIEHL: And they’re identifying as girls, but they’re born as boys.
O’REILLY: OK, and he thinks that’s an intrusion?
EHRLICH: They’re also fearful that people are going to use this as a reason to go into women’s rooms.
WIEHL: That’s the concern.
O’REILLY: OK, now what is Mississippi doing?
EHRLICH: Mississippi is doing something much larger than what North Carolina is doing. Mississippi’s law is really a beast. And essentially, it takes all these LGBT issues that we’ve been seeing recently, people being denied services.
O’REILLY: So like gay weddings?
EHRLICH: Exactly.
O’REILLY: So it says what about gay weddings?
EHRLICH: It’s saying that people, if they have sincerely held –
O’REILLY: Religious convictions don’t have to work for gay weddings?
EHRLICH: Exactly. They do not have to provide those services. Essentially what Mississippi is doing is, they're telling the LGBT community, you're not welcomed in Mississippi.
O'REILLY: Well, you're drawing that conclusion. You can make an argument for freedom of religion that it's oppressive to force somebody to do that.
WIEHL: You can, right.
O’REILLY: So I don't want to, you know, let's not draw conclusions from the law. But the law basically says to Mississippi people, if you don't want to do business with a gay, you don't have to.
WIEHL: You don't have to.
O'REILLY: But that can be discriminatory.
WIEHL: Absolutely.
EHRLICH: It is discriminatory.
