The National Basketball Association Thursday canceled plans to hold its 2017 All-Star game in Charlotte, N.C. because state government officials had made no moves to change the new law that targets the LGBTQ community, reported Yahoo’s The Vertical, quoting league sources.
Instead, the NBA has set its sights on Smoothie King Center in New Orleans for the February 19th game, although those sources tell The Vertical other cities are vying to be the venue.
This was supposed to be a shining moment for Charlotte, to host the All-Star game for the second time since 2014, as Sports Illustrated reported. But as the league, former star Charles Barkley and other members of the NBA, past and present, have made clear, the state risked losing the game if it refused to repeal recently enacted anti-LGBTQ legislation.
The law known as House Bill 2 restricts the rights of North Carolina LGBTQ citizens and forces transgender people to use only the public bathrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates.
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