A hand-painted sign advocating for North Carolina's Amendment One, which would ban all forms of civil union for same-sex couples in the state. (user Donald Lee Pardue/flickr)
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MoreNorth Carolina Senate Bill 514, more commonly referred to as Amendment 1, is far from unique on the surface: 29 other states already have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, including all Southeastern states. But because of North Carolina's unique place in the 2012 presidential elections — a likely battleground state, which will also play host to the Democratic National Committee — the amendment has raised eyebrows.
Kareem Crayton, associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina, is among those with raised eyebrows. Specializing in constitutional law and election law, Kareem discusses what makes Amendment 1 distinct, and what the political fallout of it may be. Senator Dan Soucek, a Republican member of the North Carolina State Senate, discusses the intentions behind the amendment.
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Comments [7]
Dear Dan from NYC: Cousins have not been allowed to marry in North Carolina in a long, long time. Cousin marriages weren't all that unusual in human history. Just ask the "royal" families of Europe about that. It sure wasn't a nice thing to say, but then again, you are from the north where being nice is not at all a virtue that is valued and rude, crude behavior reigns supreme. Not sure what banjo's have to do with it, but you probably thought you were insulting your fellow southern citizens with your superior Yankee mind. You have a long, LONG history of doing that too. I'm SURE this site won't publish this, but so what? Shove it up your butts (oops, couldn't resist, and I'm sure you'd enjoy it anyway) sodomites! License they mean when freedom they scream.
Religious intolerance uber alles!
Considerably less than 50% of
registered votes in NC actually voted for this amendment, probably less than 25% in fact.. There were a
total of 2,136,176 votes cast (http://results.enr.clarityelec... and
(in 2008 http://www.factcheck.org/2008/...
there were over 5.8 M voters in the state.
Some great standards for passing a constitutional
amendment in NC. Using those standards, if 49 states declined to vote on a US
Constitutional Amendment then the one remaining state could do the
dirty.
North Carolina's divorce rate is not low. Why doesn't every one of these votes come with a second proposition that bans divorce and spousal abuse. If not, these proposals just sound like bigotry to me.
You can marry your cousin but not your gay lover... cue the banjo music...
We should incentivize some sort of "same-sex union" to the point that straight people want to change the definition to include "traditional couples." Then we'd all just have one definition of marriage.
Hey Ed, since when do rights need to be voted on? Isn't that what makes them rights? Why do the mediocrities always tout the "majority rule" mantra when it comes to something they support, but talk about their "rights being trampled" when they are in the minority? Abortion and Gun control carry overwhelming support yet are besieged on a daily basis.
The old adage of "majority rule" is barely a wisp away from another one: "might is right." I guess you want to stand with the historical figures who've aligned themselves with that position, eh? Nazis, Stalinists....Republicans.
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