Now You See 'em, Now You Don't: Disappearing Equal Rights

For a couple of days, state employees in North Carolina were covered from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. For a couple of days, state workers were protected from being fired for being gay.

But, in one of more bizarre about-faces I've ever witnessed, non-discrimination language was removed from the State Personnel website almost as quickly as it appeared. No one is quite sure what happened, or why. Least of all me. But read this article from the Asheville-Citizen Times.

So for a few brief days, the LGBT state-workers were protected from discrimination. Alas. Regardless of this week's "now you see 'em, now you don't" equal rights, it's time state government protected the 10% of its employees who are LGBT. For pete's sake, it's 2008.