N.C. voters approve discrimination toward gays

[Charlotteman]

Today, N.C. voters approved an amendment to the N.C. constitution that forbids gay marriage and civil unions. No one was the least bit surprised by the outcome of the vote.

I'm curious: were there organized groups that opposed gay marriage, that were not affilated with religion?

In Washington State, the legislature and governor recently approved gay marriage. Immediately afterward, some religious group claimed they would fight it, by "putting it on the ballot"...they are currently collecting the signatures necessary to put it on the ballot.

In Washington State, not one organization is against gay marriage except religious ones....i.e. Washington Chamber of Commerce, Washington Apple Growers whatever...none of them are against gay marriage. Just religious fanatics oppose it.

I have a very strong feeling that the baptists in N.C. were totally behind putting this on the ballot. Were there any groups separate from religion that were against gay marriage too?

[Neo]

I have a very strong feeling that the baptists in N.C. were totally behind putting this on the ballot. Were there any groups separate from religion that were against gay marriage too?

FWIW, other large religious groups (e.g. Methodists) were also behind it although they seemed to be less direct about getting folks to vote for the amendment.

I'm embarrassed to be an NC resident this morning. I'll never understand why religious groups and individuals feel that it is ok to discriminate against others. This amendment means that the rights for good people are taken away and that's sick.

[Charlotteman]

......I'm embarrassed to be an NC resident this morning. I'll never understand why religious groups and individuals feel that it is ok to discriminate against others. This amendment means that the rights for good people are taken away and that's sick.

I was born and raised near beautiful Charlotte. I lived the first 24 years of my life in North Carolina.

I always knew it was a good choice to leave for greener pastures. In my case the pastures meant finding a new home that was less homophobic/religiously preoccupied.

After yesterday's N.C. gay marriage ammendment vote, it confirmed I was totally correct in leaving, all those decades ago. We humans don't have long to live in this lifetime, and I refuse to waste another precious second living among so many religious homophobes...

Of course all religious people aren't bigots, and I would imagine many many N.C. christians voted against the ammendment. When I lived near Charlotte, I personally knew many many christians who were not homophobic, even back in the 1970s.

But we still have to question this whole thing further----was there any prominent non religious N.C. organization that was in favor of the ammendment? For example was the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, or the N.C. Tobacco Growers Association, or BofA, or Duke Power, Duke University etc...were any of those types of organizations in favor of the ammendment?

I have a mighty strong feeling that N.C.'s anti gay marriage ammendment was supported almost entirely by religious groups. In Washington State, where gay marriage just passed, the ONLY groups or organizations opposed to it were religious groups.

Can we start being blunt about this issue? When are some religious people going to wake up and realize the hurt, the heartache they are causing with their naked bigotry. Perhaps loving, tolerant christians should start reaching out to their many uneducated, backward christian peers, to educate them (?)

I love North Carolina, and I'm madly in love with Charlotte. But how can any gay person continue to live in a state in which 60% of the voters are raw bigots?

[nashbill]

There is now a petition to have the DNC moved out of the state. I kind of doubt it would happen, but maybe it would wake some people up. How about BofA moving it's HQ to New York. What would that take, a signature or 2. I really believe things like this begin to be damaging to a state. I know Charlotte was probably one of the few bastions of sanity and I really liked the city when I lived there. I am pointing out that this could do damage. I can not get over the sadness (well, anger). One more thing. Why the f*&k did Obama wait until today to support gay marriage. A few days ago might have been nice. I am so fed up with all of it.

[cityboi]

What happened to the separation of church and state in the constitution? Religion is clearly behind the ban. I'm against anyone's rights being taken away whether they are gay or straight. Two gay people getting married doesn't affect my life. Just as I have a right to marry a woman, a gay person should have a right to marry who they want to. The irony is that the government supports actions that violates the Ten Commandments which homosexuality is not a part of btw. (capital punishment) where is the outrage from the religious right? I think it just proves its more about bigotry than religion. Religion is just used as a cover for hatred of people who are are not like them. BTW Obama came out in support for gay marriage,. He is the first sitting president to do so.

[nashbill]

Obama was evolving in his support and didn't come out in support of gay marriage until after Tuesdays vote. His support before the election may or may not of helped. I am pissed that he didn't do more sooner.

[cityboi]

The media is saying Obama's decision to announce he is for gay marriage is going to hurt him in the election. I don't think it will. Voters are more concerned about the economy and they realize we don't need to go backwards with republican economic policies that led to the 2008 melt down. This happens every election cycle. A wedge issue involving social issues always surfaces before an election and then after the election you hear nothing else about it. Unfortunately many voters aren't smart enough to see the politics behind all this. Its all about social issues being used as a football to energize the GOP base.

[nashbill]

The wedge issue the GOP has been been falling back on for the past many elections is those demon gays. When there is nothing else, they can always fall back on the tried and true gays who are always wanting something. Civil rights, marriage, etc... I hope you are right cityboi about this not hurting Obama's campaign.

[cityboi]

The wedge issue the GOP has been been falling back on for the past many elections is those demon gays. When there is nothing else, they can always fall back on the tried and true gays who are always wanting something. Civil rights, marriage, etc... I hope you are right cityboi about this not hurting Obama's campaign.

At first I thought it was crazy for Obama to do that but that but when you break down poll numbers and who's voting for what it makes sense. The latest nationwide polls show that half of Americans believe gay people should have the same marriage rights as straight people and there is also a higher percentage of young voters who approve a gay marriage. The youth vote will be important as it was in 2008. After republicans just recently voted down the student loan bill, the youth vote becomes even more important. The bulk of the evangelicals are republican so they won't vote for Obama anyway. Thats not to say that Obama won't lose votes because of his stand on gay marriage because he will. But I don't think its enough to sway the election to the GOP. Obama still leads in almost all the battleground states and people are most concerned about the economy.

[cityboi]

Its pretty clear what kind of people support gay marriage and what kind of people don't. Rural voters oppose it by big margins. Greensboro/Guilford County, NC is a classic example. In Greensboro, nearly every precinct voted against the amendment to ban gay marriage while in the county there was a sea of rural voters who voted for it. Its an urban/rural split. You want to know how close it was in Guilford County? The amendment only passed by 72 votes. The amendment vote in Guilford County was the closest of any county in the state of North Carolina. It almost failed in the state's third most populated county.

http://www.news-reco..._county_support

Guilford County election results on Amendment One. the link shows a precinct map of Guilford County and how each precinct voted.

http://results.enr.c...d.html?cid=0138

Guilford County, NC

For 58,520

Against 58,448

Greensboro is obviously in the center of the county. The light green are precincts that were against the amendment and the dark green were precincts that were for it. In Greensboro there was no racial or political divide on the amendment either. Whites, Blacks, other minorities and even republicans in Greensboro overwhelmingly voted against the amendment banning same sex marriage. Its a cultural divide. Rural vs Urban. Mecklenburg and Wake County both voted against the Amendment which proves its a cultural divide.

The country has come a long way in the acceptance of gay people. 20 or 30 years ago we wouldn't be looking at close voting results. I have a cousin who studied psychology in college and the subject came up one time when we were watching a movie that had a gay character in it. The fact is we are who we are whether are we are gay or straight and its not a choice. Our brains are wired one way or the other and she told me there is evidence that the development of our sexual orientation begins before birth. She said there is a natural reason people are born gay as seen in the animal kingdom and that new studies show its nature's way of population control. Homosexual behavior peaks in the animal world when a certain species begins to overpopulate. Humans are mammals and we are no different. We share our genes with all the other mammals. I understand people are being who they are which Is why i don't discriminate against gay people.

But my beef with this amendment is using religion to take the rights a way from others. This is what we are seeing in the Middle East today and we see how things are going over there. Religion and government policy should never mix. I'm a firm believer in God but not religion. Religion is man made and its used as a form of control over the population. " Do whats right if you know what good for you or you'll go to hell"

[nashbill]

It has been a long tumultuos ride. I came out in the late 70's. Things were just beginning in the interior of the country. The coasts had already started. A big reason why we left and went to larger cities on the coasts. I never in my wildest dreams thought some day I will be able to get married. So not expecting it, somehow led to surprise in the last years that this has finally come up as a civil right. Will I see this happen in TN. Not likely. I really believe that religions using there power and money (money especially) to infuence votes (seperation of church and state) should be taxed. I don't give a crap about who goes to what church and believes in what god, if parisioiners money is being used for political purposes then tax them. It's probably not legal to do that, but it doesn't hurt to wish it.

[cityboi]

In the end the supreme court will decide just is they have with the civil rights issues of the 1960s and with women's rights. There is a strong case for the supreme court to rule against bans like Amendment One and that's the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment in the U.S. constitution. It clearly states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

In the case of civil liberties, federal law is above state law.

California voters passed Proposition 8 which was a law banning same sex marriage. A judge ruled that proposition 8 violated the U.S. Constitution. Currently there is a stay and the law in not in effect in California. The judge ruled that Proposition 8 was based on traditional notions of opposite-sex marriage and on moral disapproval of homosexuality, neither of which is a legal basis for discrimination. What happens in the U.S. Supreme Court will effect every state in the country. In the end the U.S. Constitution is a legal document, not a bible. If every government decision were based on morality, capital punishment, gambling and other freedoms would be illegal. Basing law on morality leads us down a dangerous path of losing more freedoms and this country would become less of a democracy and more of a theocracy.

[Charlotteman]

........Its pretty clear what kind of people support gay marriage and what kind of people don't. Rural voters oppose it by big margins......

Its a cultural divide. Rural vs Urban....

My partner has been saying this for years. It's not really a liberal vs. conservative issue. It's rural vs. urban.Thanks for the marvelous post, ciyboi----your example of Greensboro/Guilford County beautifully explained how it works.

But back to Charlotte/Mecklenburg County. Site of the upcoming 2012 Democratic National Convention.

There have been rumblings from national Democrats to pull the convention out of N.C., because of this shameful vote against gay marriage. If the convention were to be held in N.C.'s many counties that opposed gay marriage, I would agree with the pullout.

However, the citizens of Charlotte/Mecklenburg voted against Amendment One. Pulling the convention out of Charlotte would unfairly damage the city economically, as well as hurt it's national reputation. So we're caught between a rock and hard place---we all know Charlotte shouldn't be penalized.

I think we can count on two groups being prominently represented during protests this summer in Charlotte---Occupy Wall St AND gay marriage supporters. I hope both groups raise hell on a scale not seen in Charlotte for a long time.

[Charlotteman]

The whackos are crawling out from under their rocks....

A video has gone viral in the past week or so, of Pastor Charles Worley calling for genocide against gay people. His church, Providence Road Baptist Church, is in Maiden, N.C. (approx ~40 miles from Charlotte)

This pastor not only blathers hate speech, he also recommends who the parishioners should vote for!

[media=]

[Charlotteman]

Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, N.C. has called for dads to "crack the wrists" and punch young boys who seem effeminate.... And to harass their lesbian daughters "into being straight". Another recent performance of naked hate speech in the Tarheel State.

When businessmen across the country hear about these awful people in N.C., I would think they would have second thoughts about relocating to North Carolina.

[Charlotteman]

Pastor Worley's comments about gays drew a healthy protest today---at the Catawba County Justice Center. Seems to me the logical place for the rally would have been squarely across the street from Providence Rd. Baptist Church in Maiden!

Were the organizers of the rally afraid of the big bad Baptists? Did the cops warn them from protesting there? Were the protest organizers trying hard "not to offend christians" by taking the battle where it belonged?

This is just too lame folks. If someone offends you enough to picket them, you picket in front of their establishment!

[mallguy]

What happened to the separation of church and state in the constitution?

This, from the First Amendment? It allows religious people generally unrestrained exercise of their religion, including expression of their religious views through the political process:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The wedge issue the GOP has been been falling back on for the past many elections is those demon gays. When there is nothing else, they can always fall back on the tried and true gays who are always wanting something. Civil rights, marriage, etc... I hope you are right cityboi about this not hurting Obama's campaign.

It was Democrats (due to Southern Democrats), not the GOP, who were less supportive of civil rights during the civil rights years in the 1960s. A higher percentage of Republicans in Congress, compared to Democrats, supported the Voting Rights Act and other landmark legislation.

[JerseyBoy]

Pastor Worley's comments about gays drew a healthy protest today---at the Catawba County Justice Center. Seems to me the logical place for the rally would have been squarely across the street from Providence Rd. Baptist Church in Maiden!

Were the organizers of the rally afraid of the big bad Baptists? Did the cops warn them from protesting there? Were the protest organizers trying hard "not to offend christians" by taking the battle where it belonged?

This is just too lame folks. If someone offends you enough to picket them, you picket in front of their establishment!

As someone who was there photographing the event for my job, I can tell you the reason why the Justice Center was chosen because there wasn't enough room in the right of way in front of the church for the expected 2,000 attendees. The protest was originally planned to be in front of the church until word of it spread like wildfire across the country.

[nashbill]

Mallguy, I guess I wasn't clear about how far back I was talking about. I meant the last dozen or so elections the GOP has used gay issues when they had nothing else to offer and I'm not referring to presidential elections only. So what happened to the 60's Republicans? 50 years have gone by. They have certainly flip flopped on the civil rights if it's for gay people. They seem to have turned themselves into a bigoted party who do not believe gays should have civil rights. As long as the deep pockets of evangelicals keep handing over their money, the GOP of the 60's will remain dead.

[Charlotteman]

^^^nashbill, I understand what you're saying completely. I saw it happen right before my eyes.

In the 1950s, 1960s and even the 1970s, the GOP was an intellectual and moderate party. The party was top-heavy with very very smart people such as William F. Buckley, Richard Nixon, Lowell Riechart, Henry Cabot Lodge and Nelson Rockerfeller....

Now the GOP is full of bozos that swear the earth is 6000 years old. And the party appears to be highly hostile toward science in general. William F. Buckley is probably rolling over in his grave.

The GOP went far to the right when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. But Reagan wasn't anti-science at all. He certainly didn't think the earth was less than 6,000 years old. And besides James Watt, Reagan's Interior Secretary, the rest of the administration seemed to be smart, able folks.

The GOP dumbness and backwardness started setting in around 2000 I would say. And now, 12 years later, the Republican Party I used to know is dead. As a door nail. I doubt Reagan himself would recognize his party, full of this bizarre Tea Party and far-right whacko stuff. People who want to end Social Security, start a war with Iran, cut education, turn the country into another Mexico.

And yes nashbill I agree that the GOP is using gay rights as a blatant ploy for trailer-trash and evangelical christian votes. The Party of Lincoln has institutionalized bigotry into the party's very fabric.

I can only imagine the N.C. GOP is still celebrating their victory of hate over gay marriage.

[Charlotteman]

Similar topic:

Maryland anti-gay groups have claimed more than double the amount of signatures to put gay marriage on the ballot, after the state government made it legal a while back. According to Reuters "....signatures were collected in churches and other venues."

What other venues? No one has been able to tell me, in any forum I visit, exactly who opposes gay marriage besides christians and christian groups?

Washington State religious groups have also collected enough signatures to put gay marriage on the ballot, too. When will Reuters, the Associated Press, et. al finally report the news accurately? There are no other groups besides christian groups that oppose gay marriage.

[mallguy]

Mallguy, I guess I wasn't clear about how far back I was talking about. I meant the last dozen or so elections the GOP has used gay issues when they had nothing else to offer and I'm not referring to presidential elections only. So what happened to the 60's Republicans? 50 years have gone by. They have certainly flip flopped on the civil rights if it's for gay people. They seem to have turned themselves into a bigoted party who do not believe gays should have civil rights. As long as the deep pockets of evangelicals keep handing over their money, the GOP of the 60's will remain dead.

It's not a clear dividing line. From a 2010 Gallup poll:

"35% of Republicans, compared to 61% of Democrats and 61% of Independents, find gay relationships “morally acceptable,” with abortion coming in as the second largest area of disagreement."

No party 50 years ago was in favor of gay rights. Democratic leadership has just taken the issue further than Republican leadership has.

And if gays would split their votes even 60/40 between the parties, Republicans would be MUCH more in favor of gay rights. Since gays are going to vote Democratic, why in the world would Republicans even bother pushing for gay rights? Parties push for things that their supporters push for.

[nashbill]

Mallguy, until the Stonewall Riots and the Supreme Court started throwing out laws that were challenged and the Pyschiatric community declared that being gay was not a mental defect no one was behind giving gay people any rights at all. Anything we have achieved since then has been achieved by the gay community. Not Dem's, not Rep's, not Ind's. We have battled for years for scraps. So if the Dem's are going to get behind us for political purposes, so be it. I don't really care. The GOP has allowed itself to be hog tied by the "Tea Party" and extreme right wing Evangelical Christians, who absolutely do not not want gays to have any rights and to possibly be interred in camps or killed out right. Log Cabin Republicans are all but ignored and they hand over money to the GOP. So they don't even want our support.