“Sheer Bullying”: Right-Wing Media Lash Out At Justice Department For Suing North Carolina Over “Discriminatory” Anti-LGBT Law

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Written by Alex Kaplan, Erin Fitzgerald & Bobby Lewis

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Conservative media lashed out at the Department of Justice for filing a lawsuit stating that North Carolina’s anti-LGBT “bathroom bill,” which bans people from using public restrooms that do not correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificates, is “discriminatory.” Right-wing media claim the department is “playing dangerous games with our constitutional republic” and that the lawsuit is “designed to make the gay mafia seem as the victims of discriminatory injustice that just doesn’t exist.”

Department Of Justice Sues North Carolina Over Anti-LGBT “Bathroom Bill”

NY Times: Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against N.C. Law For Compelling “Public Agencies To Follow A Facially Discriminatory Policy.” The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina on May 9 over the state’s “bathroom bill,” which bans people from using certain public restrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificate. This followed the state's lawsuit against the federal government for threatening the state over the law. According to The New York Times, the Department of Justice claimed the law “compels ‘public agencies to follow a facially discriminatory policy,’” and Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the law “state-sponsored discrimination.” From the May 9 New York Times article:

Days after the Justice Department demanded that North Carolina back away from a new state law restricting access to restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms, Mr. McCrory, in a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court here, accused the department of “a baseless and blatant overreach” stemming from a “radical reinterpretation” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The state General Assembly’s Republican leaders filed a similar suit against the Justice Department.

[...]

Hours later, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said no clarification was needed, and she asserted that federal civil rights laws barring discrimination on the basis of sex prohibit laws like the one in North Carolina.

“They created state-sponsored discrimination against transgender individuals who simply seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security,” she said at a news conference in Washington. “None of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone that they are not.”

Straying from her usual understated, lawyerly tone, Ms. Lynch, a North Carolina native, grew impassioned as she likened the fight to earlier battles over Jim Crow laws and laws against same-sex marriage.

“This is not the first time that we have seen discriminatory responses to historic moments of progress,” she said. Addressing transgender people, she added: “We see you. We stand with you, and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.”

The Justice Department’s lawsuit, filed in a different federal court in the state, argued that North Carolina’s law, which prohibits people from using public restrooms that do not correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificates, compels “public agencies to follow a facially discriminatory policy.” [The New York Times, 5/9/16]

Right-Wing Media Lash Out At The DOJ For “Playing Dangerous Games With Our Constitutional Republic”

National Review’s David French: “The Obama Administration Is Playing Dangerous Games With Our Constitutional Republic.” National Review staff writer David French attacked the Justice Department’s move as “sheer bullying,” asserting that “The Obama administration is playing dangerous games with our constitutional republic.” French wrote, “The Obama administration credulously buys the notion that a man in a dress or a man who has been surgically mutilated is now a 'woman,' and it seeks to enforce that notion with the full power of the federal government.” From the May 9 National Review article:

At an afternoon news conference, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a “significant law enforcement” action — its own lawsuit. At the same time, Lynch indicated that the DOJ retained the authority to federal funding to key state entities, issuing a not-so-veiled threat of dramatic action before the courts issue a definitive ruling. At the same time, she preposterously compared the act of preserving bathrooms for people of the same sex to, of course, “Jim Crow” and hearkened back to the days of segregated water fountains.

A public-relations battle over bathrooms and showers has transformed into a fight over the meaning and indeed authority of the Constitution itself. In its zeal to advance the sexual revolution, the Obama administration has defied the will of Congress, unilaterally rewritten federal law without even bothering to go through a statutory rulemaking process, and now seeks to bring a sovereign state to heel through a combination of threats and lawsuits.

[...]

North Carolina’s lawsuit represents a direct challenge to the notion that the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] can amend federal law merely by changing its “interpretation.” It also challenges the very idea that requiring people to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex represents sex discrimination. The Obama administration credulously buys the notion that a man in a dress or a man who has been surgically mutilated is now a “woman,” and it seeks to enforce that notion with the full power of the federal government. As I said before, quack science meets quack law, and the Constitution is the casualty.

The Obama administration is playing dangerous games with our constitutional republic. Unlike nullification crises in years past, this time the state government is leading the way in attempting to preserve the will of Congress and our nation’s system of checks and balances by defending federal law as written. The executive branch has gone rogue by amending federal law through unconstitutional action. [National Review, 5/9/16]

Mark Levin: DOJ's Is “Blackmail[ing]” North Carolina With Lawsuit. Radio host Mark Levin asserted that the lawsuit from the “Department of Injustice” is “blackmail[ing]” North Carolina and is part of a “radical left agenda.” From the May 9 edition of Cumulus Media Networks’ The Mark Levin Show :

MARK LEVIN (HOST): So radical is this pathetic administration, so dangerous, so diabolical, that even our bathrooms aren’t safe. Now you knew that already. But we have a governor in North Carolina, Pat McCrory, who deserves the full support of this country. Because McCrory was blackmailed, in essence. He was told that he and the North Carolina legislature either back off their statute that basically restates that the boys’ room is for boys and the girls’ room is for boy, girls and it doesn’t discriminate against straights or gays or whatever, it’s just the way it is based on your genitalia. That if North Carolina didn’t back down, then the federal government is going to take billions and billions of dollars away from it. This is the way they blackmail states.

[...]

So what did Loretta Lynch and the Department of Injustice do today? Well, they sued him. They sued the state of North Carolina. And of course they wrap themselves in civil rights and fairness and equality. And remember what we’re talking about here. People who are changing their genitalia, or in the midst of changing their genitalia, or perhaps even thinking about changing their genitalia.

[...]

Who’s stopping anyone with a penis to go to a mens’ room and with a whatever to go to a female -- I shouldn’t even have said it. You understand. Since when has that changed anything? Why is that a civil right, to be able to, for a guy to go to a girls’ room and a girl to go to a guys’ room? What is this? [[, t] They act like it’s Selma, Alabama. Well it’s not. They’re always looking for a phony civil rights issue.

[...]

This is about a radical left agenda. Period. It’s about using the federal government to advance this radical left agenda. Period. [Cumulus Media Networks, The Mark Levin Show, 5/9/16]

Fox’s Todd Starnes: “AG Lynch Would Not Say If Leaving The Seat Up In A Transgender Restroom Would Be Considered A Hate Crime.”

[Twitter, 5/9/16]

Fox’s Bill O’Reilly: “Beyond Belief That The DOJ Is Hectoring NC Over Bathroom Rights When The DOJ Doesn’t Go After Sanctuary Cities. PC Madness.”

[Twitter, 5/9/16]

Fox's Erick Erickson: “Next From Loretta Lynch, If You Have Multiple Personality Disorder Or Schizophrenia You Can Use The HOV Lane.”

[Twitter, 5/9/16]

Daily Caller’s Derek Hunter: “Lois Lerner: Pass Fast & Furious: Meh Hillary’s Email: Dragging Their Feet Dude In The Women’s Bathroom - On It!”

[Twitter, 5/9/16]

American Spectator’s Caleb Howe: “Loretta Lynch Comparing Bathroom Issue To Jim Crow. This Country Is In The Toilet, Literally. Shame On America.”

[Twitter, 5/9/16]

Media Research Center’s Tim Graham: Mike Barnicle “Mocks Republicans As Obsessed With Bathrooms. As If Obama’s Justice Department ISN’T?”

[Twitter, 5/10/16]

Dinesh D’Souza: “Anyone Seen Eric Holder Lately … He May Have Gone Transgender On Us And Reemerged As Loretta Lynch”

[Twitter, 5/9/16]

RedState’s Susan Wright: Lynch’s Announcement Was “Designed To Make The Gay Mafia Seem As The Victims Of Discriminatory Injustice That Just Doesn’t Exist.” RedState’s Susan Wright claimed that Loretta Lynch’s announcement of the lawsuit was “designed to make the gay mafia seem as the victims of discriminatory injustice that just doesn’t exist” in a battle of “decency versus perversion.” From the May 10 RedState post:

While North Carolina’s bathroom issue is not necessarily a religious liberties issue, but one of common sense and the comfort and safety of North Carolina’s citizens, the Obama administration is seeking to force abnormality on the state in a manner that would cause corrupt King Ahab to be taken aback.

[…]

On Monday afternoon, Loretta Lynch, the soulless enforcer for Obama’s reckless disregard for Constitutional process, addressed the lawsuit, and announced a lawsuit by the DOJ against North Carolina, complete with emotionally engineered rhetoric, designed to make the gay mafia seem as the victims of discriminatory injustice that just doesn’t exist.

[…]

While Lynch’s speech was meant to be poignant, for those not drinking the Kool-Aid, it was enraging, at best. She makes a mockery of the struggles of those who had to actually fight for rights as human beings, in comparing what our black citizens had to endure to the Gender Dysphoria (see: mental illness) of .03% of the population.

This is shaping up to be a true battle of Constitutional wills, as well as decency versus perversion. [RedState.com, 5/10/16]