Free Republic

First no Bruce Springsteen concert, now no XHamster.com porn. The popular pornography site has blocked North Carolina IP addresses since 12:30 p.m. Monday, according to a report in the Huffington Post, in order to punish the state’s porn hounds over the bathroom bill. North Carolinians seeking to indulge now get a black screen, which the company plans to replace with a petition demanding the repeal of HB2, the bill that requires segregated public facilities, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, to divide according to biological sex not gender identity.

"The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal's mission and culture," CEO Dan Schulman wrote in a memorandum on the company's website. That's what a corporate bully looks like, folks. Conform to the demands of radical cultural militants or pay the price. "It is corporate blackmail," Lt. Gov. Dan Forest told me. But PayPal is not just a big business bully – they are also hypocrites. "PayPal does business in 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal, including five where the penalty is death," NC Rep. Robert Pittenger wrote...

'We shouldn't judge people by ... who they love, what gender they identify with' (Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International) For Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International, it was an “easy call” when it came time to voice his opinion on North Carolina’s HB2, the nation’s first state law limiting the bathroom options for transgender people. The law also excludes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from anti-discrimination protections, and blocks municipalities from adopting their own anti-discrimination and living wage rules. In first-person opinion piece on CNBC, Sorenson wrote: “I was asked to join a group of American business leaders...

This Saturday was the district conventions for many of the NC districts. The keynote speaker was Dr. Ada Fisher, a very impressive speaker and I recommend her short book “I am a Republican” which gives the history of NC African American Republicans. She also said it was her opinion that candidates for President should be born in America. I wasn’t sure how the process worked, but submitted myself as a delegate candidate. I wasn’t sure if anyone would second my nomination. All the GOP delegates in my county were Cruz supporters. Someone outside my district seconded me. Each of us...

Dear Bruce,As a resident of North Carolina since 2003, I read with interest that you decided to cancel your April 10th concert in Greensboro because of HB2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act.In your statement you explained that, in your view, the bill is “an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.” You added that it was time for you and your band “to show solidarity for those freedom fighters” (speaking of transgender activists), and you ended your statement with...

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Republican presidential candidate Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said religious liberty laws that allow refusal of services based on sexual orientation like the ones vetoed in Georgia and passed in North Carolina and Mississippi are unnecessary.

As we previously reported Ted Cruz is trying to steal the election using delegates to over ride the will of the people. This is something he claimed he wouldn’t do and something the majority of people disagree with. The majority wants the party to unite behind Trump even if he doesn’t reach 1,237 delegates. The majority does not want Cruz and his establishment allies subverting the will of the people by way of delegates. The Colorado GOP tweeted this after the big steal. They have since deleted it and now claim they were hacked. It should be noted however that...

Joaquín Carcaño is soft-spoken. But the 27-year-old from South Texas is not ashamed of his identity. --snip-- Joaquín Carcaño responded to a request from the ACLU and Lambda Legal through UNC’s LGBTQ Center seeking community members willing to share their experiences. “They replied, and it sort of snowballed from there, which I wasn’t expecting,” he said. “I didn’t know what part I would play, but I knew I wanted to be involved because of my position at UNC.” A Mexican-American, Joaquín Carcaño works with UNC’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases connecting Mexican men and Mexican transgender women who...

A common sense bathroom guideline that men use men’s restrooms and women use women's restrooms has LGBT activists up in arms. The University of North Carolina (UNC) announced last week that it would comply with state law which requires students to use the correct biological bathroom, rather than choosing which bathroom best suits them, according to a report by the Daily Caller. UNC President Margaret Spellings confirmed in a memo to the university that the law would be followed on the college campus. This is what has caused backlash from the LGBT group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The organization...

To accommodate the perceived wishes of a very small number of people, the federal government and many states are placing women and girls at risk of rape and assault in restrooms. There are about a mere 700,000 transgender individuals in the U.S., or 0.3% of the adult population. As John Hinderaker correctly notes -- that makes them almost as rare as unicorns. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that allowing men who decide they really want to be women to use women’s restrooms is a dangerous idea: not to the wise men of Charlotte, North Carolina who passed an...

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said on Saturday that he would not have signed the controversial North Carolina law that requires transgender people to use bathrooms that correlate with their gender at birth.

Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: I’m a Springsteen fan. Have been since I was a very young man and always will be. With that said, it’s worth noting that The Boss has delivered a smack in the face to his fans in North Carolina this week, cancelling on short notice a concert he was scheduled to play there because of his objections to the state’s new bathroom privacy law. He took to his Facebook page to break the news. As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this...

"You can't start a fire. You can't start a fire without a spark!" Bruce Springsteen fans in Greensboro, North Carolina, won't be dancing in the dark anytime soon, because The Boss canceled an upcoming concert. And you can blame the governor and state lawmakers. Springsteen moved the concert in protest of the state's so-called "bathroom" law, which, among other things, forces transgender people to use the restroom associated with the gender on their birth certificates, not their gender identity. Springsteen released a statement saying, "Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and...

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band canceled their North Carolina concert because of the state's new law blocking anti-discrimination rules for the LGBT community, said guitarist Steven Van Zandt, calling it the kind of legislation that's like an "evil virus" spreading around the U.S. Van Zandt told The Associated Press they decided not to perform Sunday in Greensboro because of the law, which requires transgender people to use bathrooms based on their biological sex and bans state lawsuits for any type of workplace discrimination.

The former president of Charlotte's LGBT Chamber of Commerce has resigned after he came under fire from a conservative group, which noted that he is on a sex offender list and questioned his role in supporting the city's expanded nondiscrimination ordinance. Chad Sevearance-Turner had been the president of the chamber, which supported the newly expanded ordinance that gives legal protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals. . . . Sevearance-Turner was arrested in 1998, when he was 20, and charged in Cherokee County, S.C., with a "lewd act, committing or attempting a lewd act upon a child under 16."...

The backlash against North Carolina’s law banning anti-discrimination ordinances kept going unabated Friday, as Bruce Springsteen announced that he was canceling a weekend show in the state in solidarity with those protesting the bill. Springsteen and the E Street Band were scheduled to perform at the Greensboro Coliseum on Sunday night as part of their current tour, which continues in the United States this month and heads to Europe in May. On Friday afternoon, Springsteen released a statement saying that he could no longer play the show.

Some residents of North Carolina don't like the idea of sharing restrooms with transgender men and women, and they were pleased to learn that, thanks to a new law, they won't have to. I have news for them: They already have. They just didn't know it. And they will again. In February, the Charlotte City Council approved an ordinance strengthening protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identification. It included a provision stipulating that transgender men may use men's restrooms and transgender women may use women's restrooms. That provision brought on a hailstorm of fury and disbelief, and...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina senator wants to bar local governments from requiring businesses to let transgender people use the bathroom of their choice, saying he's taking a "stand for decency and common sense." The bill introduced Wednesday by Sen. Lee Bright would also require multistall bathrooms on public property to be designated and used "based on biological sex." It specifically includes student bathrooms, locker rooms and shower rooms in public schools. How private businesses handle their bathrooms should be up to the owners, not government, he said. He knows of no city in South Carolina where that's...

The Obama administration is reviewing whether a new North Carolina law curbing anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people could affect the flow of federal aid to the state. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says federal agencies are leading the review of the new law's impact on federal policies. He says the White House is not yet involved, but could offer specific direction later.

In an act of extraordinary hypocrisy, PayPal, which last month announced its plans to expand into Cuba, has decided not to expand into North Carolina because the state is determined to keep its public bathrooms and locker rooms safe. PayPal has now sent a loud and clear message to America: The common sense values of conservative Americans should be scorned; the destructive values of Cuban Communists, including decades of human rights abuses that continue to this hour, should be embraced.I say it’s time to send a message to PayPal. Perhaps we can communicate most clearly to them through our money?According...