Rachel Maddow: Why North Carolina's About to Get Its 'Pants Sued Off'

Anti-LGBT discrimination is costly, as the MSNBC host discusses with an ACLU representative.

North Carolina “is about to get their pants sued off them by the ACLU,” says Rachel Maddow.

The MSNBC show host gave viewers a short history lesson Monday on anti-LGBT bills and the backlash against the states that pass them.

Maddow reviewed the public relations disaster in Indiana in 2015, when Gov. Mike Pence signed a so-called “religious freedom” bill into law, unleashing a boycott of the state from major businesses. The state took at least a $60 million hit from passing the legislation, which the governor ultimately amended after nationwide outcry.

Concluding that this bill’s fallout may have cost Pence an opportunity for a presidential run — and influenced other states like Georgia to veto similar anti-LGBT legislation — Maddow points out “that same memo apparently did not get to Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina.”

Last week, McCrory signed House Bill 2, which strikes down LGBT-inclusive municipal antidiscrimination ordinances and prohibits cities from adopting any new ones. It also expressly requires transgender people to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match their gender identity.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina, Lambda Legal, and Equality NC announced Monday they are filing a lawsuit to take aim at the legislation. The groups have attacked it for not only being discriminatory, but financially improper. Earlier today, the state's attorney general, Democrat Roy Cooper, announced he will not defend the law in court, which means the state's Republican leadership will have to hire outside counsel — with North Carolina taxpayers footing the bill.

Watch Maddow discuss the lawsuit with the ACLU’s Chase Strangio below.