Governor Sununu Signs Bathroom Bill and Therapy Ban

The following statement may be attributed to Shannon McGinley, Cornerstone Action Executive Director.

Today, a Republican governor goes down in history as the man who signed the Bathroom Bill, endangering women and girls all across the state and giving unfair advantages to men posing as women in various competitive environments.

Sadly, Gov. Chris Sununu’s decision to sign the Bathroom Bill, HB 1319, and the Therapy Ban, HB 587, will overshadow some of his otherwise constructive accomplishments and identify him as the man who allowed unwanted, socially harmful ideas into a law that directly opposes government’s constitutional role to serve the “general good.”

Gov. Sununu today has signed away every Granite Stater’s right to privacy in public accommodations. He has signed away protection for equity in school athletics and scholarships. He has bought into a lie that it is somehow bigotry to recognize a person’s natural biological sex, and instead instituted a new era of bigotry against people with common sense.

His choice to sign the Therapy Ban is nothing short of cruel. HB 587 is not about preventing child abuse, which is already illegal, and rightly so. The therapy ban is about penalizing therapists working with minors who are struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, if those therapists say anything that can be perceived as insufficiently supportive of same-sex attraction or gender reassignment. The mere accusation, even from a co-worker or a client’s acquaintance, will be enough to put the therapist’s career in jeopardy.

Recently, Gov. Sununu said, “let us be the example” to the nation regarding this legislation. This is not the example New Hampshire residents elected him to give. Forcing a fringe special-interest group’s view of human sexuality on every New Hampshire resident and punishing those who disagree is not freedom. It is tyranny.

In order to score political points with a special-interest group, he is ignoring the fact that all New Hampshire residents are already protected under anti-discrimination law. The Bathroom Bill is not about fairness or justice. There is an objective biological difference between women and men, and the Bathroom Bill is a step toward making expression of that fact a civil rights violation. The bill makes any perceived discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” a cause for action. Worse than that, these actions would not be brought in court, where the accused would have due-process protection, but in front of an administrative panel with the power to impose punitive fines.

The people who elected Chris Sununu know that recognizing a person’s natural biology isn’t bigotry. They have every reason to demand to know why he signed legislation that implies just the opposite.

Further, Chris Sununu’s signature on the Bathroom Bill gives license to what DHHS has been doing under the color of law since last July: treating “gender reassignment” as a taxpayer-covered expense under Medicaid, including irreversible and life-altering gender reassignment surgery and hormonal treatment for minors.

Cornerstone recognizes the dignity of each human being, created male or female – with an objective biological sex, not an irrational claim of “gender identity.” We oppose the invention of special legal rights on the basis of the artificial category known as gender identity. We will be watching the administrative tribunal known as the Human Rights Commission to see how aggressively gender politics will impinge on the lives of Granite Staters.

While it is still unclear whether the gamble Gov. Sununu took today for his own personal political future will pay out for him, it is clear that the fallout from today’s terrible decision will be on all of us long after the next election is over.

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