Ted Cruz backs NC law: ‘Men should not be going to the bathroom with little girls’
Senator Ted Cruz came out in favor of
a North Carolina law prohibiting biological males from using the restrooms,
showers, and changing facilities of the opposite biological sex during a town
hall meeting in Buffalo last night.
Cruz was asked to comment on a law
signed by North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory that restricts intimate settings
based on biology, rather than "gender identity." The law has
come under intense fire from entertainers, filmmakers, and a powerful coalition
of corporate interests threatening to boycott the state until it is reversed.
The senator, a former solicitor
general of Texas, told NBC's Chuck Todd that, under the constitutional doctrine
of federalism, these and other vital decisions are left to the states.
"I'm a constitutionalist, and
the state has the power to pass their own laws to make a determination that men
should not being going to the bathroom with little girls," he said.
But he added that his opposition is
rooted, not just in the Founding Fathers, but in his own role as a father.
"As the father of daughters, I'm
not terribly excited about men being able to go alone into a bathroom with my
daughters," he said. "And I think that is a perfectly reasonable
determination for the people to make."
Gov. McCrory called a special
session of the state legislature after Charlotte passed a city ordinance
requiring all public accommodations to make sex-segregated areas open to anyone
who identifies as a member of that sex, regardless of his or her biology, or be
found guilty of discrimination.
Such ordinances have passed across
the country, touching off a backlash among concerned parents. Last
November, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance was struck down in a
landslide by voters in the citywide referendum.
However, the most determined advocate
for opening intimate facilities to members of the opposite biological sex is
the Obama administration, which has sued or threatened to sue numerous school
districts and educational facilities for refusing to comply with its
transgender policy.
"The Obama Education Department
is going against a junior high, insisting that the junior high must allow a
teenage boy to shower with teenage girls," Sen. Cruz said last night.
"Now, that's just nuts. I mean, that's not a reasonable position."
Although no civil rights legislation
empowers the federal government to prosecute individuals or businesses on the
basis of gender identity bias, the Obama administration announced that it
will treat any transgender discrimination as an act of sexual discrimination,
which is covered by federal law.
Cruz, who is trailing in the polls
before next Tuesday's New York primary, echoed his rival, Donald Trump, blaming
the national feeding frenzy over lavatories on "the political correctness
we have embraced."
"Enough already!" he said.
