The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, released the following statement after a new national poll shows Americans are strongly rejecting laws like North Carolina’s HB2, which targeted transgender people and wrote discrimination into state law.
The national survey released by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that only 35 percent support such laws, while 64 percent of Americans oppose them. What’s more, only 30 percent support laws that allow businesses to discriminate and deny service to LGBTQ people because of who they are or whom they love. A majority — 63 percent — are opposed to such laws.
“Targeting LGBTQ people for discrimination isn’t just wrong, it’s a recipe for electoral disaster,” said HRC Communications Director Jay Brown. “From Pat McCrory to Donald Trump, those who somehow still believe it’s acceptable to target LGBTQ people with discriminatory laws that deny us equal treatment under the law are in for a rude awakening in November.”
In key states around the country like North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Florida, HRC has found that the number of LGBTQ eligible voters alone exceeds the average margin of victory over the last three presidential elections.
Meanwhile, with support for marriage equality at record highs, HRC’s own polling has also found that a 55 percent majority of voters are less likely to support an anti-equality candidate for president. This includes key swing groups like independents, married women and white millennial voters, all of which reported voting Republican in 2014 exit polling.
The poll from PRRI comes one day after a new poll in North Carolina shows that HB2 is hurting incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory, who trails his Democratic challenger by 9 points — the worst margin of any statewide Republican tested in the poll. Monmouth University reported, “7-in-10 voters (70%) feel the passage of HB2 has been bad for North Carolina’s reputation nationally. Only 9% say it has been good for the state’s image and just 14% say it has had no impact.”
Last week, the Human Rights Campaign joined Equality North Carolina in endorsing Roy Cooper for Governor of North Carolina, citing McCrory’s refusal to fully repeal #HB2.
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