I am phone banking against the amendment tomorrow, and it irks me that I have to do this. [View all]

[yardwork]

In North Carolina we're in early voting between now and primary day on May 8 on a constitutional amendment that would make marriage between one man and one woman the only legally recognized relationship in the state. Marriage for gay people is already illegal in North Carolina by statute. This amendment is much more sweeping. It would drop legal recognition of all domestic partnerships, straight or gay. It would drop legal protections, access to health care coverage, and other benefits for children of those couples. Domestic violence protection for unmarried couples would be difficult or impossible to obtain. In other words, this constitutional amendment won't make a difference one way or the other to me but it will make things much worse for hundreds of thousands of families, most of whom are straight.

If the amendment passes - and polls show that it probably will - then perhaps two dozen gay couples who are employed by local or state governments will lose benefits for their children and partners. Hundreds of thousands of unmarried straight couples, many of them affluent retirees, will lose benefits such as access to housing, health insurance, retirement benefits, etc. Straight people and their children have a lot to lose if the amendment passes. They're the ones who should be out phone banking and telling their church congregations not to vote for the amendment.

Instead, gay people like myself are out phone banking and contributing money to defeat a constitutional amendment that is homophobic in intent but hurts children and many straight people as collateral damage. If by some miracle the amendment is defeated, I'm sure that dozens of people on DU will run around talking about what a wonderful thing it is that so much progress is being made on gay rights and isn't it a shame that gay people are still so ungrateful.

And I will have exactly the same number of rights I had before in North Carolina, which is not very many, and certainly no right to marriage.

But I'll be out phone banking tomorrow for the children.