A Surprise for Gay Marriage in the South?

[xchrom]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/05/a-surprise-for-gay-marriage-in-the-south.html



I’ve been driving around western North Carolina this week, and have been pained to see a good many signs on lawns and in front of churches reading “Vote YES for Marriage”—particularly as the yes vote in question, in a referendum on the ballot for the May 8th election, would actually be a “no” for marriage. This is how the proposal is phrased:

Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

North Carolina is the only state in the Deep South that does not already have an anti-gay-marriage amendment tacked onto its constitution, and the state representatives who drafted this language seem to have overcompensated for their late arrival in the game. This amendment would not only ban gay marriage (which is already illegal), it would also invalidate civil unions, and undermine or do away with existing protections for unmarried heterosexual couples who live together. Ohio passed a law with similar wording, and it’s been used to stymie domestic-violence prosecutions in cases in which the couple was unmarried.
I’ve been following the campaign against Amendment 1 in part out of family concern: my sister and her partner of thirteen years live in Durham, and my sister’s partner has been working with the Coalition to Protect North Carolina Families, an organization formed to fight the amendment, since its inception. (I’ve also donated to the Coalition, in honor of my sister and her partner.) I have deep ties to the state of North Carolina, and when I first heard about this amendment, my heart sank. With the Republican primary essentially decided, the ballot measure is the main focus of next week’s election, and early voting is already under way. If Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, could pass in liberal-minded California, it seemed likely that this amendment could be voted in in a more conservative state.

But the North Carolina campaign is turning out to be an entirely different beast than Prop 8. In the past four years, national opinion has steadily shifted, poll by poll, in favor of gay marriage, so that now a majority of Americans support it. And while those numbers are different in N.C., where about a fourth of voters support gay marriage, tolerance is growing. Public Policy Polling has been tracking this issue, and has seen the percentage of likely voters who say they support the amendment drop from sixty-one per cent to fifty-four per cent in the last six months. That percentage drops more radically, down to thirty-eight percent, when voters understand that the amendment’s language bans recognition not only of gay marriages, but also of civil unions. North Carolinians may not be ready to accept gay marriage on the whole, but they do not want to see their friends and neighbors cut off from the benefits of a recognized union. Elon University polls have found an even more radical shift in opinion.


Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/05/a-surprise-for-gay-marriage-in-the-south.html#ixzz1tiIGfcSU

[HillWilliam]

1. This issue is going to go down to the very wire

The thought of it upsets, depresses, and angers me in more ways than I can express.

Yeah. "Anger" is a good word. I'm fucking sick and tired of being a political football for fucking pseudo-religious hypocrites. They need to work on their own marriages (which they seem not to take so seriously at all) before they meddle in mine.

As I posted on my FB page last night: Those who vote to take rights away from others can expect to have the favor returned -- sooner rather than later.

[stillwaiting]

2. "I'm fucking sick and tired..." --> Me too HillWilliam. Me too.

I really do get you.

[yardwork]

3. Word.