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BIG CITY: Pure poison in the state capital

Posted on September 22, 2011September 22, 2011 by Staff

Kirk Ross

The leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly, self-proclaimed as the most open and transparent in history, called another last-minute press conference a week ago Monday and finally announced what exactly they were going to do during the special session.

All the language from a bill on term limits had been stripped out and replaced with a resolution calling for a vote by the people of the state to write requirements on the act of marriage into the state Constitution. This would happen during the first primary election of the year, scheduled for May. By the following day, both chambers had voted to put the amendment on the ballot.

Most people paying attention knew the marriage amendment would finally see the light of day sometime late into Election Day in November 2010, when the GOP took both chambers of the legislature with fairly large margins. For the past decade, similar bills had been kept bottled up in one committee or another by Democratic leaders. Even in Democratic-run times, the worry was that once the bill was on the floor, anything could happen.

The reason for this is that the whole thing is pure poison – poison to our community, poison to our economy and poison to democracy. Trumpeted by both sides in this issue was that North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast not to have gone through such a constitutional battle. And now, at a time when people are hurting, when the economy is on the ropes, when political passions are already hot, when trust in government is at an all-time low – now, we take the poison.

Already the symptoms are starting to set in – politicians in both parties are trying to have it both ways. But there is no real gray area in this debate. You’re either for constitutionally protected discrimination or not. (For the record, I’m against it.)

Unlike early on, in the states where a referendum restricting marriage was used to ratchet up turnout among social conservatives, this state takes up an amendment referendum after the current has changed. At midnight on Tuesday, for instance, the United States military ended the absurd policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

GOP leaders said they moved the date of the referendum to the primary because they wanted to take politics out of it, but I think it was just the opposite. They moved it because in November it would surely lose. With the tide against them, the May primary, when most of the key races will be Republican, was their only chance.

Although the deck is stacked, the stakes are too high not to challenge the amendment and its premise that something called traditional marriage is under attack. But it’s important to remember that while there is possibility for reasoned debate, winning means getting out the vote in a very heated primary election.

Naturally, the ads will be ubiquitous and awful. You might as well brace yourself for a return to Helms-era TV ads, where every gay person is a member of the Village People. Oh, and angry storm clouds are coming for your kids.

I suppose the state’s media will cover this a little bit better than it did the amendments early in the 20th century, when many of the well-read papers of the day championed the dawn of Jim Crow. But you know darn well that in their online successors, comments sections will swirl with the same hate.
In the end, if it passes, we’ll be like a bunch of other states – stuck with a badge of intolerance and a blot on our Constitution that we will overturn at a time a notch or two more enlightened than this one.

If we beat it, well, that would be some party and something to be proud of. We’d show the country, and maybe the world, a thing or two about what kind of state we are, the character of our people and the health of our democracy. North Carolina – First in Fight.

2 thoughts on “BIG CITY: Pure poison in the state capital”

  1. wayne peterson says:
    September 24, 2011 at 10:45 am

    So, the bigots claim same sex marriage will destroy “traditional marriage”. (Incidentally, “traditional marriage” as found throughout your bible is polygamy!). Anyway, Massachussets has had SSM since 2004 and has the LOWEST divorce rate in the nation,less than 1/2 of NC’s divorce rate. Similarly, Iowa has the 3rd lowest! So much for “destroying traditional marriage”!!!! The bigots claim that marriage can only be between a man and a woman because only they can procreate. What about senior citizens who want to marry….shall we forbid them?And explain this to us…..why did God select a MARRIED VIRGIN to birth his Son without any procreation by her husband????? But, if it smacks of discrimination, NC has a rich tradition to uphold, all of which (slavery, segregation,anti-interracial marriage) has been sponsored by your Christian churches as being “God’s Plan”. Looks like you have another “God’s Plan” on your hands! Ain’t Christianity wonderful???

  2. Bruce T. Nash II says:
    September 28, 2011 at 11:48 am

    A wonderful piece of work – to the point, ON point, pointed at the so-called legislators, who are, in reality, the minions of the Art Popes of North Carolina, and the perpetrators of this ignorant bigotry in the name of ‘preserving traditional marriage’. We, the PEOPLE of the great state of North Carolina must muster our inclusiveness and stiffen our spines, to vote against this attempt to codify in our state Constitution the bigotry of those who wrote the bill and the amendment. First in Fight – a great new state slogan!
    Clemmons, NC

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