North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said he will not defend a new state law that prohibits Charlotte and other local governments from enacting policies that protect LGBT people.
Cooper said House Bill 2 or the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act is discriminatory and a "national embarrassment."
"Not only is this new law a national embarrassment, it will set North Carolina's economy back if we don't' repeal it. We know that businesses here and all over the country have taken a strong stance in opposition to this law," he said at a press conference, according to CBN News.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the law on March 23 to override a Charlotte ordinance that would allow transgenders to use the bathroom based on their gender identity.
Corporations and LGBT activists are moving to overturn the law.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of North Carolina, Lambda Legal, and Equality North Carolina filed a lawsuit against the new law requiring public schools and places of public accommodations to have bathrooms that are to be used by people based on their biological sex.
"We're challenging this extreme and discriminatory measure in order to ensure that everyone who lives in and visits North Carolina is protected under the law," said Chris Brook, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, according to LifeSite News.
Because of the new law, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee have banned publicly funded travel to North Carolina unless it is essential.
"By singling out LGBT people for disfavored treatment and explicitly writing discrimination against transgender people into state law, H.B. 2 violates the most basic guarantees of equal treatment and the U.S. Constitution," according to the lawsuit.
The NBA is also threatening to move its 2017 all-star game out of Charlotte.
But supporters of the new law said it is essential.
Evangelist Franklin Graham criticised the Charlotte ordinance, writing on his Facebook page: "Are people just not thinking clearly? This law would allow pedophiles, perverts, and predators into women's bathrooms. This is wicked and it's filthy."
"To think that my granddaughters could go into a restroom and a man be in there exposing himself...what are we setting our children and grandchildren up for? There's not a public restroom in Charlotte that would be safe!" he added.
LGBT rights supporters said North Carolinan lawmakers made false claims about bathroom use risks.
Cooper's office is required to defend the state.
The National Conference on State Legislatures said the law makes North Carolina the first state in which public school and university students can only use bathrooms based on their birth certificates.
The plaintiffs are UNC-Chapel Hill employee Joaquin Carcano and Payton Grey McGarry, a student at UNC-Greensboro, who were born female but identify themselves as males. They have not changed their birth certificates.
North Carolina's new law says a transgender person may only use the bathroom that matches his or her gender identity if he or she underwent sex change operation and changed his or her birth certificates.
The North Carolina Values Coalition branded the lawsuit as frivolous.
Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the organisation, said it was filed by "groups that represent radical extremists who want to allow grown men to shower and use the bathroom next to little girls."
The governor of Georgia vetoed a religious liberty bill this week due to pressure.
"Everyone I've spoken to is outraged. We really are because we're surprised that the governor would bow down to Hollywood, the NFL," said Garland Hunt, pastor of The Father's House.
