The big news in the sports world yesterday was the fact the NBA decided to move the 2017 NBA All-Star Game out of Charlotte after the passage of the North Carolina HB2 Law passage from March. The NBA was the first major sports organization to move an event out of the state but isn’t going to the be the last.
The law states the following
North Carolina’s new law sets a statewide definition of classes of people who are protected against discrimination: race, religion, color, national origin, age, handicap or biological sex as designated on a person’s birth certificate. Sexual orientation – people who are gay – was never explicitly protected under state law and is not now, despite recent court decisions that legalized same-sex marriage.
This effectively allows a hotel, restaurant, etc to not serve someone based on their sexual orientation. This means two gay parents could not be allowed to stay at a hotel based on their sexual orientation when they are down in the state to watch their son or daughter play.
The NCAA announced today that all NCAA championship host cities must submit non-discrimination details by Aug. 12 includes all championships including ones with non-pre determined sites (aka Baseball, etc.). This movement could see NC State, North Carolina, UNC-Wilmington, and all other North Carolina based schools from hosting NCAA events in all sports.
The state of New York recently announced that all non-essential travel to North Carolina has been banned for state employees leading to Binghamton baseball cancelling series in the 2017 season against NC State and High Point while Albany basketball had to cancel a game at Duke.
This will not be the end of the topic as this is just the tip of the iceberg of the ramifications of this law.
