The NBA community continues to speak out against the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act passed last month by the state of North Carolina.
The bill requires transgender people to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender on their birth certificate, rather than that with which they identify, and also prohibits local governments from adopting or enforcing anti-discrimination policies not already contained in the state's anti-discrimination laws. At present, North Carolina has no law specifically banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The controversial piece of legislation immediately presented a moral and optical dilemma to the NBA, which is slated to hold its 2017 All-Star Weekend in Charlotte, the state's largest city.
Both the NBA and the Charlotte Hornets promptly issued statements to condemn the bill, and some have suggested the league move the All-Star festivities to a different city if the law isn't repealed. One such person is Detroit Pistons head coach and president Stan Van Gundy.
"We shouldn't have the right in our country to discriminate against anybody and especially in this situation," Van Gundy said Monday, according to MLive's David Mayo. "And I think the league should take a stand."
Van Gundy, who compared the flimsy justification for the law to past efforts to suppress the civil rights movement, went on to specify exactly what he feels that stand should be.
"That game should be moved if they don't change the law," he said. "... Look, we're in 2016, and the idea that for any reason you can conjure up, you think you have the right to discriminate against people, I just think it's against everything that we should stand for.
"I understand logistically it would be a major problem but so what? Sometimes standing up for things that are right makes things tougher. I don't think the game should be there if they're not going to change that law."
