Did you know that, so long as you’re a nonprofit, you can rent out space in the Governor’s Mansion for parties and the like? You can! In May, for instance, the Jesse Helms Center threw a shindig for the late senator’s friends and supporters. “It’s a whole diverse group of folks that rent it,” Governor McCrory’s communications director explained to the media. “We have not said no to any nonprofit that’s asked [to rent it] during his time in office.”
The folks at Progress NC decided to take the gov up on his offer. Next Wednesday evening, as the Air Horn Orchestra’s beautiful cacophony of protest blares across the street, the liberal group will host the Garden Party Against Hate inside McCrory’s house. How cool is that? The eventessentially, a low-key, no-alcohol viewing party for the orchestra’s fourteenth performanceis free, though it’s also RSVP only.
By complete coincidencehonest!the Garden Party will take place the same day the INDY releases a very special issue dedicated entirely to the havoc that HB 2 has wrought, anchored by an exquisite story on the three decades of politics that made the law inevitable, penned by the inimitable long-ago INDY scribe Barry Yeoman. There will also be features exploring what it takes for trans people to change their birth certificates to comply with HB 2 (spoiler: it’s not easy); what young people think about the law ostensibly designed to protect them from bathroom predators (they’re not fans); how the law has affected the state’s reputation as a somewhat progressive lighthouse in the Deep South (it’s not good); and the one silver lining from this mess. And that’s just part of it.
We’ll be sure to leave a few copies in the mansion’s (probably not unisex) john. Maybe the governor will learn a thing or two during his morning constitutional.
