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 jhe90 wrote:
This is the ultimate storm in a tea cup..

British people and their tea...Why can't you just call it coffee like us 'purestrain' majoritians.

How I think the world portrays others.

 Sgt. Vanden wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
This is the ultimate storm in a tea cup..

British people and their tea...Why can't you just call it coffee like us 'purestrain' majoritians.

How I think the world portrays others.

Because Tea is the meaning of life?
Says whilst drinking tea....

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I wish that the current news culture would freaking tone it down with giving everyone a constant sense of hysteria. Now, rape should be treated like attempted murder, in my mind, but it is complete bullgak that I, as a 34yo male with the approximate violent tendencies of a pre-spider bite Peter Parker, have to increasingly wonder if I am around a stranger that's female-especially if we are moderately alone-, is assessing me as:

Scanning....."Subject: Human Male. Caution: Presence of penis suggests probable predilection for rape. Take immediate precautionary measures."

I have started doing stuff like asking if it's okay to sit in vacant seats next to people on busy trains, because a lot of women freeze up upon seeing Strange Man trying to sit with them. Showing that I'm aware I'm getting close, but still need to sit down often breaks the ice.
It's sad that I even need to. These days I usually just sit in the luggage rack if it's empty.

First off, you sit in the luggage rack?! :O How do you even fit? :O

Secondly, I also do the thing with asking, but I don't think it's just women that freeze up. I know for a fact that it freaks me out if people sit next to me without asking for the go ahead beforehand.

Being a Londoner born and bred I'm completely used to people sitting next to me without asking permission. I would only ask permission if the seat has a bag on it, or in a cafe where you might want to share a table.

The luggage racks on a lot of trains in the Greate Western fleet are big enough to lie down on. Not the overhead ones, the ones near the doors for big suitcases and folding bikes and so on.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:

North Carolina School Board Lets Kids Carry Pepper Spray in Case They Encounter Trans Students

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/05/11/north_carolina_school_board_allows_pepper_spray_against_trans_students.html?utm_content=inf_4_2641_2&wpsrc=socialedge&tse_id=INF_5fc0127943eb4f56aec389dd99aaa776

On Monday, the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education, located in North Carolina, voted to let students bring pepper spray on campus. Why the sudden rush to let students carry what the board calls “defensive sprays”? As board member Chuck Hughes explained while endorsing the proposal:

Depending on how the courts rule on the bathroom issues, it may be a pretty valuable tool to have on the female students if they go to the bathroom, not knowing who may come in.
Hughes was alluding to a recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision holding that a federal ban on sex discrimination in education encompasses gender identity discrimination against trans students. The ruling is being appealed.

The Salisbury Post reports that at least one board member, Travis Allen, was concerned about the policy—not because it was motivated by anti-trans animus, but because pepper spray can be a dangerous weapon. His fears were ultimately assuaged, however, when he concluded that a bottle of Windex or a computer could do the same damage as a defensive spray. “I could do more damage with my laptop than I could with a bottle of pepper spray,” he declared.

At press time, the number of students who have been assaulted by predators who feign a trans identity to gain access to bathrooms is zero.

The feth, North Carolina? Who comes up with this gak?

Because using pepper spray in confined quarters is always a great idea

It could be worse. They could have authorised the use of cattle prods and tasers in the showers.

Because using pepper spray in confined quarters is always a great idea

I'm extremely onside with women having pepper spray and knowing how to use it. SWMBO, Genghis Connie, and The Boy have pepper spray. I carry the spray version in my hand when walking the mountain dog alone, or the big streamer version when walking both dogs, and I have used it. Eminently better than blasting speer gold dots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It could be worse. They could have authorised the use of cattle prods and tasers in the showers.

Why? thats just a motivational tool for them to hurry up.

 Frazzled wrote:

I'm extremely onside with women having pepper spray and knowing how to use it.

The issue is a lot of people who carry it have no idea how to use it, and advocating for it to be given to children to use to combat a fake boogeyman means the result will be:

*Law is made for invisible transgender people to 'self-identify' when using bathrooms
*When Transgenders self-identify, targeted violence will happen against them

What better way to follow up passing a law all about violence than to give teenagers pepper spray?

I was pepper sprayed when I was young. I was walking to my car in the cold after buying christmas gifts for homeless (not joking) from the Burlington coat factory/toysRus. I was speed walking to my car and this woman was fidgeting. I didn't pay her much mind, but she wen to a car and I kept walking. She assumed I was following her or something and leapt out and pepper sprayed me in the face and then jumped in her car and sped off. Luckily, someone saw the whole thing and saw I had not done anything to provoke an attack.

I called the police, who said they found a woman who had become 'impaired' by her own pepper spray who hit another car and caused a major injury. She 'claimed' she had just been sexually assaulted in a parking lot. Of course, that means she was blaming me for everything, and in turn the cause of her accident and being liable for the damages. If I didn't have witnesses, I would have been screwed.

Luckily I did, police believed me, I pressed charges for assault which she was found guilty of and she lost both my civil suit and her accident claim (which was a huge medical issue for the person she injured) but if I didn't have a witness, I could easily have been in jail and financially liable for literally doing nothing because an ignorant person used pepper spray without training and for no valid reason.

I have serious issues with untrained people carrying *ANY* type of weapon for self defense as they are more likely going to harm themselves and put themselves at MORE RISK or escalate violence against an innocent bystander. Your best self defense is still grab-breaking techniques and physical techniques which are reactionary opposed to point-and-shoot weapons.


This whole thing is about having a transgender identify in a bathroom and then kids pepper spray the gak out of them out of 'feeling uncomfortable' and then having everyone stand around and say 'you deserved it'. It is a violent dangerous law intended to harass and cause harm to the LGBT community.

The issue is a lot of people who carry it have no idea how to use it, and advocating for it to be given to children to use to combat a fake boogeyman means the result will be:

*Law is made for invisible transgender people to 'self-identify' when using bathrooms
*When Transgenders self-identify, targeted violence will happen against them

What better way to follow up passing a law all about violence than to give teenagers pepper spray?

I agree that the reasoning is stupid (T's) but protecting from others is not.
Teenagers aren't children. Interesting, of GC's girl friends: 2/3rds already carried pepper spray or mace. They don't care about T's. They care about creepers.

I was pepper sprayed when I was young.

Big fething deal. I sprayed myself. I had pepper spray fights with my Boy and his friends when they were in high school. My mom and wife accidentally got blasted. its just pepper spray.

I was walking to my car in the cold after buying christmas gifts for homeless (not joking) from the Burlington coat factory/toysRus. I was speed walking to my car and this woman was fidgeting. I didn't pay her much mind, but she wen to a car and I kept walking. She assumed I was following her or something and leapt out and pepper sprayed me in the face and then jumped in her car and sped off. Luckily, someone saw the whole thing and saw I had not done anything to provoke an attack.

And? She could have kicked you, beat you with her purse, or wailed you with a plethora of items.

I called the police, who said they found a woman who had become 'impaired' by her own pepper spray who hit another car and caused a major injury. She 'claimed' she had just been sexually assaulted in a parking lot. Of course, that means she was blaming me for everything, and in turn the cause of her accident and being liable for the damages. If I didn't have witnesses, I would have been screwed.

So you're angry you ran into a crazy woman. It won't be the last time...

I have serious issues with untrained people carrying *ANY* type of weapon for self defense as they are more likely going to harm themselves and put themselves at MORE RISK or escalate violence against an innocent bystander.

We are in complete agreement.

Your best self defense is still grab-breaking techniques and physical techniques which are reactionary opposed to point-and-shoot weapons.

Then what? I used to train women in that. Thats just a part of it.

This whole thing is about having a transgender identify in a bathroom and then kids pepper spray the gak out of them out of 'feeling uncomfortable' and then having everyone stand around and say 'you deserved it'. It is a violent dangerous law intended to harass and cause harm to the LGBT community.

In the Real World (TM) thats not going to happen any more than now, because hey-its battery.

 Frazzled wrote:

In the Real World (TM) thats not going to happen any more than now, because hey-its battery.

Not when people LIE about it... We already have people who claim 'self defense' in shootings. And in most self-defense techniques and classes, it relies on reaction, not proactive action. You actually have to want for someone to touch or attack you before you do things to them so pro-actively trying to pepper spray people from a distance and then lie about it shows the issue with it.

So teenagers now have bigoted parents telling them transgenders are an issue, now gives them pepper spray, and it is just waiting for someone to spray another student and claim 'self defense' (and you can't prove it wasn't) You really think the police in NC are going to treat it as battery in that politically charged environment?

People having weapons, being untrained and their heads full of 'boogeymen' is a recipe for disaster. That is what these laws amount to. First cause people to identify themselves, then give people authorization to be armed against 'danger' and wait. They know what they are doing and 'self defense' is the ultimate way to force violence on victims.

We have police in our area being fired and arrested for using pepper spray inappropriately because how dangerous it is, but yet they want to give it to teenagers to use in schools to protect them from transgender rapists. Good job NC.

Not when people LIE about it... We already have people who claim 'self defense' in shootings. And in most self-defense techniques and classes, it relies on reaction, not proactive action. You actually have to want for someone to touch or attack you before you do things to them so pro-actively trying to pepper spray people from a distance and then lie about it shows the issue with it.

That’s about the most godawful stupid thing I’ve heard all morning.

People having weapons, being untrained and their heads full of 'boogeymen' is a recipe for disaster.

One should always be familiar. Pepper spray is not a weapon though. An ax is a weapon. A Beretta is a weapon. Even a taser could be considered a weapon I guess. Pepper spray is not a weapon.

We have police in our area being fired and arrested for using pepper spray inappropriately because how dangerous it is, but yet they want to give it to teenagers to use in schools to protect them from transgender rapists. Good job NC.

While the reasoning for the law is stupid (and we are agreed that it is stupid), I welcome it as it allows women (including T’s) an additional tool to protect themselves. As I would consider T’s and lesbians at risk groups for increased violence (and gay males) I would think you would be for increased protection options.
But we’re also coming at it from different viewpoints. When I was in school everyone had 30.30s or shotguns on gun racks in the school parking lot, and boys routinely had large pocket knives.

nkelsch wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

In the Real World (TM) thats not going to happen any more than now, because hey-its battery.

Not when people LIE about it... We already have people who claim 'self defense' in shootings. And in most self-defense techniques and classes, it relies on reaction, not proactive action. You actually have to want for someone to touch or attack you before you do things to them so pro-actively trying to pepper spray people from a distance and then lie about it shows the issue with it.

So teenagers now have bigoted parents telling them transgenders are an issue, now gives them pepper spray, and it is just waiting for someone to spray another student and claim 'self defense' (and you can't prove it wasn't) You really think the police in NC are going to treat it as battery in that politically charged environment?

People having weapons, being untrained and their heads full of 'boogeymen' is a recipe for disaster. That is what these laws amount to. First cause people to identify themselves, then give people authorization to be armed against 'danger' and wait. They know what they are doing and 'self defense' is the ultimate way to force violence on victims.

We have police in our area being fired and arrested for using pepper spray inappropriately because how dangerous it is, but yet they want to give it to teenagers to use in schools to protect them from transgender rapists. Good job NC.

You're wrong about self defense laws, at least in NC but it's true to greater or lesser degrees in every state. Here in NC, I do NOT have to wait for somebody to actually attack me in order to defend myself. The legal justification for self defense in NC is a reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm. If a person believes another person is about to cause him/her physical arm then that person has legal justification to act in self defense to prevent that harm from occuring. If you actually had to wait and let somebody attack you first then that would make self defense useless. The whole point of self defense laws is to prevent the harm from happening in the first place. You never have a legal obligation to let an aggressor hurt you.

There are only a few specific circumstances that remove your right to self defense here in NC, if the person you feel threatened by has already identifited himself/herself as law enforcement and the LEO is lawfully performing their duties, if the person who feels threatened is in the process of committing a crime or just committed a crime, or if the person who feels threatened was the instigator of the confrontation.

I personally don't have an issue with allowing teenagers to carry defensive sprays on school grounds but I agree that the school board is using specious reasoning in this instance. If students, faculty or other people wanted to attack students in the school bathrooms there certainly wasn't anything preventing them from doing so that isn't still in effect once trans students are allowed to use whatever bathroom they want. Were bathroom assaults occuring in the school prior to now? Are there even any students enrolled that are trans or whatever and want to use bathrooms that were previously not allowed for them to use?

I've yet to see any empirical evidence that supports the terrible nonsensival HB2 bathroom prevision that our state legislators felt was extremely important even though there was no public demand for it. All the bad things that an agressor would do in the instance of a bathroom assault are already illegal and we still have no security or attendants in public bathrooms so allowing the public to use the public bathrooms of their choice isn't creating any new dangers that don't already exist.

 Frazzled wrote:

One should always be familiar. Pepper spray is not a weapon though. An ax is a weapon. A Beretta is a weapon. Even a taser could be considered a weapon I guess. Pepper spray is not a weapon.

How about this Frazz, spray yourself in the face with pepper spray, and then try and say it's not a weapon. It's not a deadly weapon, sure, but it's still a weapon.

Have you read HB2? I have not but one some other more liberal boards, there have been posts that parts of the law were actually put in place that are discriminatory toward G/L as well, which was the real purpose.

Have you heard that or have more informaiton on it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

How about this Frazz, spray yourself in the face with pepper spray, and then try and say it's not a weapon. It's not a deadly weapon, sure, but it's still a weapon.

I have. My boy and his friends had more than one pepper spray fight in the yard. I have also used it jokingly on my potatoes.
Its not a weapon. It leaves no injury except to your pride if you stupidly did it around your friends who now have it on youtube.
but I agree if you have it you should be very versed on how to use it and when-aka standard self defense rules.

[quote=Frazzled 688187 8672255 7c9b1f23c698e9434a766f2a131f3818.jpgI have. My boy and his friends had more than one pepper spray fight in the yard. I have also used it jokingly on my potatoes.
Its not a weapon. It leaves no injury except to your pride if you stupidly did it around your friends who now have it on youtube.
but I agree if you have it you should be very versed on how to use it and when-aka standard self defense rules.

 Frazzled wrote:

Its not a weapon. It leaves no injury except to your pride if you stupidly did it around your friends who now have it on youtube.
.

Well, that... and death... Even pepper spray selling companies say it is a weapon and may cause death. Many jurisdictions classify it as a weapon and some even require registered carrying like firearms. If 'trained professionals with experience' end up killing people with it, then how is it not a weapon in the hands of the ignorant and untrained? DOJ says it is a weapon which carries a risk of death.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-lay-scientist/2011/nov/22/how-dangerous-is-pepper-spray
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/about-pepper-spray/
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-18/news/mn-14572_1_pepper-spray-manufacturer
https://www.scribd.com/doc/98447918/Pepper-Spray-Update-More-Fatalities-More-Questions

Prestor Jon wrote:

There are only a few specific circumstances that remove your right to self defense here in NC, if the person you feel threatened by has already identifited himself/herself as law enforcement and the LEO is lawfully performing their duties, if the person who feels threatened is in the process of committing a crime or just committed a crime, or if the person who feels threatened was the instigator of the confrontation.

So a transgender person in NC has no right to self defense in the bathroom looks like...

They have the right to pepper spray the pepper sprayer, and both of them are legally in the right.

Or something, I don't know, I just want to use the bathroom and get out.

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
They have the right to pepper spray the pepper sprayer, and both of them are legally in the right.

Or something, I don't know, I just want to use the bathroom and get out.

No. In NC, it is a crime for a transgender to be in the 'wrong' bathroom, thus they have no right to self defense there apparently.

nkelsch wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Its not a weapon. It leaves no injury except to your pride if you stupidly did it around your friends who now have it on youtube.
.

Well, that... and death... Even pepper spray selling companies say it is a weapon and may cause death. Many jurisdictions classify it as a weapon and some even require registered carrying like firearms. If 'trained professionals with experience' end up killing people with it, then how is it not a weapon in the hands of the ignorant and untrained? DOJ says it is a weapon which carries a risk of death.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-lay-scientist/2011/nov/22/how-dangerous-is-pepper-spray
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/about-pepper-spray/
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-18/news/mn-14572_1_pepper-spray-manufacturer
https://www.scribd.com/doc/98447918/Pepper-Spray-Update-More-Fatalities-More-Questions

Having been pepper sprayed (aunt kept it at her office in a non-closed drawer and I was a stupid 10 year old), it fething sucks and should be classified as a weapon. I could totally see it causing serious harm/death to someone.

It most defiantly is a weapon, and not something to be used lightly. It can cause permanent damage, or even death to those with repository problems. It's not something we should ever be encouraging kids to bring into schools. Especially since it's only a matter of time until some dumb kid uses to attack someone for no reason

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/11/21/about-pepper-spray/

Talk about generational differences. No wonder we went from beating Da Nazis to losing to a JV terrorist group. We've turned into a nation of wussy girls.
Its not a weapon if it requires "the eggshell rule" to apply. Jeez. We had long guns at school and played with home made pipe bombs. Jezz kids these...hold on a sec "hey you! Yes you with the tricycle!@ Get off me lawn!" what was I saying oh yes, kids these days.

 skyth wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

There are only a few specific circumstances that remove your right to self defense here in NC, if the person you feel threatened by has already identifited himself/herself as law enforcement and the LEO is lawfully performing their duties, if the person who feels threatened is in the process of committing a crime or just committed a crime, or if the person who feels threatened was the instigator of the confrontation.

So a transgender person in NC has no right to self defense in the bathroom looks like...

No they still do. The crime has to be at least a felony. HB2 doesn't make being in the wrong bathroom a felony so it doesn't take away anyone's right to self defense.

nkelsch wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Its not a weapon. It leaves no injury except to your pride if you stupidly did it around your friends who now have it on youtube.
.

Well, that... and death... Even pepper spray selling companies say it is a weapon and may cause death. Many jurisdictions classify it as a weapon and some even require registered carrying like firearms. If 'trained professionals with experience' end up killing people with it, then how is it not a weapon in the hands of the ignorant and untrained? DOJ says it is a weapon which carries a risk of death.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-lay-scientist/2011/nov/22/how-dangerous-is-pepper-spray
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/about-pepper-spray/
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-18/news/mn-14572_1_pepper-spray-manufacturer
https://www.scribd.com/doc/98447918/Pepper-Spray-Update-More-Fatalities-More-Questions

Thats just Yankee loser jurisdictions who gave up worrying about individual freedoms decades ago. Not like the enlightened regions of America where we say America Hurr and eat our Freedom Fries and are immune to pepper spray because we eat jalapenoes and jabaneoroes...for breakfast!

EDIT: THis is not especially germane to the topic, so we might let this drop or start a new topic on pepperspray: Lethal Weapon or Handy Spice Packet?

 Frazzled wrote:
Have you read HB2? I have not but one some other more liberal boards, there have been posts that parts of the law were actually put in place that are discriminatory toward G/L as well, which was the real purpose.

Have you heard that or have more informaiton on it?

Here is the text of HB2

http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2015E2/Bills/House/PDF/H2v1.pdf

Part 3 of the bill makes it state law that local/municipal governments cannot create protected classes because that ability resides solely with the state government. Since sexual orientation has never been listed as a protected class on the state level that provision of HB2 removes sexual orientation protected class status from any municipality that had enacted it. So cities like Asheville that had sexual orientation as a protected class are no longer allowed to have it. HB2 makes protected classes be either statewide or nonexistent.

It's a pretty fethed up interpretation of the principle of federalism and local jurisdictions but since most areas of NC never had LGBT as a protected class it hasn't had an impact on much of the state. I haven't seen any reports of the municipalities that did have LGBT as a protected class suddenly seeing incidents of discrimination against LGBT people simply because the municipal anti discrimination protection was struck down by HB2.

The argument is that all power is derived from the state level. Unless the state has granted the power (which depending on jurisdiction it might have) the local unit does not have the power.

That answers the question, they are pre-empting local anti-GL legislation.

 Goliath wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I wish that the current news culture would freaking tone it down with giving everyone a constant sense of hysteria. Now, rape should be treated like attempted murder, in my mind, but it is complete bullgak that I, as a 34yo male with the approximate violent tendencies of a pre-spider bite Peter Parker, have to increasingly wonder if I am around a stranger that's female-especially if we are moderately alone-, is assessing me as:

Scanning....."Subject: Human Male. Caution: Presence of penis suggests probable predilection for rape. Take immediate precautionary measures."

I have started doing stuff like asking if it's okay to sit in vacant seats next to people on busy trains, because a lot of women freeze up upon seeing Strange Man trying to sit with them. Showing that I'm aware I'm getting close, but still need to sit down often breaks the ice.
It's sad that I even need to. These days I usually just sit in the luggage rack if it's empty.

First off, you sit in the luggage rack?! :O How do you even fit? :O

Secondly, I also do the thing with asking, but I don't think it's just women that freeze up. I know for a fact that it freaks me out if people sit next to me without asking for the go ahead beforehand.

I suspect I'm not thinking of the same thing.
In the trains I use, there's a large area about the size of a single bed for suitcases, with a waist height second bed for more.
I sit in there when it's empty. The guards don't mind, and it means I don't scare anyone.

When I had literal rainbow hair, I sat next to a huge black guy in a business suit on the morning commute, thinking that he'd probably be fairly used to people staring at him, and understand in some way (in Derbyshire, you can go a few weeks before seeing anyone who's not Caucasian). I was in my own work shirt, suit jacket and tie. By the end of the trip, he was plastered against the window, with at least half of his seat empty, and had pulled his bag up off the floor away from me.

Gotta admit I got to work feeling like I was lower than filth that day. It's not the only time I've had people behave like that.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 Goliath wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I wish that the current news culture would freaking tone it down with giving everyone a constant sense of hysteria. Now, rape should be treated like attempted murder, in my mind, but it is complete bullgak that I, as a 34yo male with the approximate violent tendencies of a pre-spider bite Peter Parker, have to increasingly wonder if I am around a stranger that's female-especially if we are moderately alone-, is assessing me as:

Scanning....."Subject: Human Male. Caution: Presence of penis suggests probable predilection for rape. Take immediate precautionary measures."

I have started doing stuff like asking if it's okay to sit in vacant seats next to people on busy trains, because a lot of women freeze up upon seeing Strange Man trying to sit with them. Showing that I'm aware I'm getting close, but still need to sit down often breaks the ice.
It's sad that I even need to. These days I usually just sit in the luggage rack if it's empty.

First off, you sit in the luggage rack?! :O How do you even fit? :O

Secondly, I also do the thing with asking, but I don't think it's just women that freeze up. I know for a fact that it freaks me out if people sit next to me without asking for the go ahead beforehand.

I suspect I'm not thinking of the same thing.
In the trains I use, there's a large area about the size of a single bed for suitcases, with a waist height second bed for more.
I sit in there when it's empty. The guards don't mind, and it means I don't scare anyone.

When I had literal rainbow hair, I sat next to a huge black guy in a business suit on the morning commute, thinking that he'd probably be fairly used to people staring at him, and understand in some way (in Derbyshire, you can go a few weeks before seeing anyone who's not Caucasian). I was in my own work shirt, suit jacket and tie. By the end of the trip, he was plastered against the window, with at least half of his seat empty, and had pulled his bag up off the floor away from me.

Gotta admit I got to work feeling like I was lower than filth that day. It's not the only time I've had people behave like that.

That strikes me as an incredibly overblown reaction to sitting next to somebody with rainbow dyed hair. I've seen much stranger stuff on the subway in New York City that was pretty much accepted or ignored by every passenger. Unfortunately people sometimes get too caught up in their own personal world view to be able to be as accepting of the world as they could be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
The argument is that all power is derived from the state level. Unless the state has granted the power (which depending on jurisdiction it might have) the local unit does not have the power.

That answers the question, they are pre-empting local anti-GL legislation.

They were municipal ordinances that didn't conflict with any state laws. Nobody was campaigning on this issue, nobody was holding rallies or protests on this issue, it wasn't mentioned this year in the media or by politicians until HB2 was passed. I'm not a fan of protected classes in principle but I also don't like the state prohibiting local governments from governing their localities either. This just reeks of a state legislature power grab and that contradicts the principle of federalism and local governments. The more concentrated political power becomes the harder it is for individuals to make their voices heard.

The Republican party says one thing but means something else.

They are all for cutting spending...Except on the Military.

They are for less invasive government and less regulations...Unless you're dealing with something they don't like (Abortion, Homosexuals, or Transexuals for instance).

They are for local control unless the local government does something they don't like (See above).

They were municipal ordinances that didn't conflict with any state laws. Nobody was campaigning on this issue, nobody was holding rallies or protests on this issue, it wasn't mentioned this year in the media or by politicians until HB2 was passed. I'm not a fan of protected classes in principle but I also don't like the state prohibiting local governments from governing their localities either. This just reeks of a state legislature power grab and that contradicts the principle of federalism and local governments. The more concentrated political power becomes the harder it is for individuals to make their voices heard.

You're not going to get disagreement from me.

Slightly different events in Houston. The city changed the law to add non-discrimination provisions without discussion. When some preachers spoke up, the city turned around and demanded copies of their sermons and membership lists. THEN the situation blew up big time with many many churches losing their minds (and rightly so as this violates two three portions of just the First Amendment and screams government oppression). Then the state got involved when politicians saw their chance to pander to a portion of their base.

Prior to the vote: (lesbian) mayor popular.
After the city tried to get the sermons and membership: mayor unpopular.
Way to be stupid.

The Republican party says one thing but means something else.

They are all for cutting spending...Except on the Military.

They are for less invasive government and less regulations...Unless you're dealing with something they don't like (Abortion, Homosexuals, or Transexuals for instance).

They are for local control unless the local government does something they don't like (See above).

I feel like I should disagree but can't find fault in your statement so...

Problem is political speech is not allowed by non-profits I believe.