NBA All-Star gamed spotlights LGBT oasis in the South

NEW ORLEANS -- The city hosting this year's NBA All-Star game has long enjoyed a reputation as a welcoming place for the gay and lesbian community.

New Orleans is home to one of the country's oldest gay bars, the gay celebration Southern Decadence draws nearly 200,000 people yearly, and gay and lesbian authors flock here for the Saints and Sinners literary festival.

All of that acceptance will be on full display this weekend in a not-so-subtle statement about equality.

The city of Charlotte was supposed to host the All-Star game Sun- day, but the NBA moved it to New Orleans when North Carolina passed "the bathroom bill," which limits protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people. It also requires transgender people to use many public restrooms corresponding with the sex on their birth certificate.

Louisiana hasn't passed laws similar to North Carolina. Gov. John Bel Edwards touted the state's diversity while lobbying the NBA, saying bringing the game here would reaffirm the league's "commitment to communities that value fairness and inclusion."

Just Edwards signed an executive order barring discrimination against LGBT state workers and contractors.

"We were able to recruit and bring the NBA here because of positive pro-equality work that the city and state have been doing," said SarahJane Guidry, who heads the Forum for Equality, a Louisiana group advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

She said Edwards' executive order went further than his Democratic predecessors by including transgender people (immediate predecessor Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal did not sign any such order). AP