RALEIGH -- The Justice Department wants a lawsuit by North Carolina's governor dismissed to streamline the legal battle over the state's law limiting protections for LGBT people.
Federal lawyers asked a judge Tuesday to dismiss Gov. Pat McCrory's lawsuit defending the law. Four other lawsuits, including a challenge by the Justice Department, are being heard by a judge in another federal court.
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The federal government argues that McCrory's lawyers "rushed to the courthouse" because they knew the Justice Department planned to sue the state. They say McCrory raises the same issues in litigation in the other court.
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HB2 was designed to block a Charlotte non-discrimination ordinance, part of which allowed transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender they identify with. The state law requires people to use the restroom according to their biological sex listed on their birth certificate in government buildings, schools, and universities. 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.
HB2 EXPLAINED