On February 22, the Charlotte City Council approved an expansion of its anti-discrimination ordinance by a 7-4 vote. It will be forbidden by law as of April 1 for places of housing and public accommodation (such as stores, restaurants, bars, and taxis, but not public schools) inside Charlotte city limits to refuse service to LGBT people on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression. The ordinance already forbids discrimination on the basis of age, gender, race, and religion. More controversially, the ordinance allows transgender people to use the restroom or locker room of their choice, depending on whether they identify as male or female.

In March 2015, proposed changes to the anti-discrimination ordinance without the restroom provision failed by a 5-6 vote. Since then, two new council members were elected, both of whom voted to support the changes. The expanded ordinance is the first of its kind in North Carolina.

Governor Pat McCrory and House Speaker Tim Moore have spoken of “legislative intervention to correct this radical course,” which would occur when the legislature’s next scheduled session begins in late April. The North Carolina General Assembly has ultimate power over municipalities and can strike down all or part of any local ordinance.

Most opposition to the ordinance changes comes either from religious freedom arguments or from concerns that pedophiles and other sexual predators would take advantage of the ordinance to gain entry to women’s facilities or men’s facilities with children in them in order to commit sexual crimes. Supporters of the ordinance changes claim that such fears are not borne out in available evidence and that transgender people are currently at risk of being attacked in restrooms and locker rooms.

While all establishment media attention is focused on the LGBT rights, religious freedom, and potential crime aspects of this event, no attention has been given to a secular argument against this measure on the grounds of private property and freedom of association. When a government decrees that private property owners who run a business within their property must serve people despite their individual preferences not to do so, this is both a violation of private property and a form of forced association. (This is no surprise of course, as private property rights and freedom of association both require anarchy, and we are far from that as of this writing.) While we may decry certain forms of discrimination as ignorant bigotry, this is no excuse for asking the state to initiate the use of force against people to turn their private properties into de facto common spaces simply because they reject civil standards of values and/or have legitimate safety concerns.

The correct action to take, if any at all, is to speak out against and socioeconomically ostracize people who disagree with one’s strongly held positions on issues. In a free market, bigots are punished because they relinquish customers and employees who have the traits against which the bigot is prejudiced as well as customers and employees who are sufficiently offended by said prejudice to ostracize the bigot. This is more than a linear relationship, as those who cannot or will not obtain goods, services, and employment from the bigot will be likely to do so from other providers who are not bigoted rather than do without. This will not only impoverish the bigot, but enrich his competitors. The eventual result is that bigots cannot compete with those who are not bigoted, and must either renounce their bigotry or go out of business.

Unfortunately, seven members of the Charlotte City Council have decided that granting special privileges is more important than protecting private property, freedom of association, public safety, and freedom of religion.

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