Royal Oak Commissioners Join Protest of NC 'Bathroom Bill'

ROYAL OAK, MI – North Carolina won’t be getting any money from the city of Royal Oak.

Commissioners unanimously approved a measure Monday that bans non-essential city-paid travel to North Carolina. In doing so, city officials have joined the growing backlash against southern state’s new law that prohibits local governments from enacting ordinances that protect gay rights, such as one passed by Royal Oak officials and later approved by voters in 2013.

Those criticizing North Carolina for its so-called “bathroom bill” include leaders of PayPal, which announced it was backing out of a planned expansion in Charlotte; rocker Bruce Springsteen who cancelled a concert in Greensboro; and more than 80 business leaders who called on North Carolina legislators to repeal the law, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and leaders from North Carolina’s largest corporation, Bank of America.

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Royal Oak joins government leaders in San Francisco and New York City, as well as governors in seven states, in banning non-essential government travel to the Tar Heel state.

“Royal Oak supports equality (and) we will not spend public money in states that are actively undermining and rolling back the basic human rights of their citizens,” Royal Oak Mayor Jim Ellison, who proposed the ban, told the Detroit Free Press.

The vote is more philosophical than practical.

City employees haven’t had any reason to travel to North Carolina, but Ellison said “big cities, small cities, medium cities need to do this — to reaffirm where we stand on equal rights.”

L. Michael Gipson, a spokesman for the LGBT advocacy group Equality Michigan, told the Free Press, he thinks Royal Oak is the first Michigan city to approve such a travel ban to North Carolina.

Gipson said the Detroit-based nonprofit group is more focused on stopping legislation that would impose some similar restrictions in Michigan.

State Sen. Tom Casperson, R- Escanaba, is sponsoring legislation requiring Michigan students to “only use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their birth” gender unless they have “written consent from a parent or guardian,” Michigan Radio reports.

The Upper Peninsula lawmaker's proposed bill is in response to guidelines and recommendations released earlier this month by the State Board of Education to make Michigan schools more welcoming and safer for LGBTQ students.

Among the recommendations is one that would allow students to use the locker room that corresponds with their gender identity.

Also, any student who wants to use an “all-gender or single user restroom,” such as a staff restroom or one in a nurse’s office, should be allowed to do so, though that shouldn’t be the only option available to transgender kids. The suggested guidelines also state students should be allowed to play sports on the team that corresponds with their gender identity.

"If my school district suggested they would allow a young boy to go into a locker room where my young daughter is, there's no way I would be comfortable with that as a parent," Casperson told Michigan Radio.

“I look at it as just common sense,” he said. “It’s going to still allow for the student, with the parent, to identify the problem … that if a student is struggling with their identity, clearly, we should be listening to what they have to say. Then, look at ways to make accommodations to accommodate that situation. But what we’re pushing back on is the idea that we’re going to put children together in bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex.”

Image credit: Scott Beale via Flickr / Creative Commons