
{"id":25178,"date":"2012-04-19T10:13:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T14:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=25178"},"modified":"2012-04-18T16:30:33","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T20:30:33","slug":"amendment-one-a-lesson-in-exclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/04\/19\/amendment-one-a-lesson-in-exclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Amendment One: A lesson in exclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Christopher J. Heaney<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I came to law school because I thought the law could make North Carolina a more inclusive community. If Amendment One passes, it will turn our state constitution into a message of exclusion. Amendment One would amend the state constitution to make heterosexual marriage \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the only domestic legal union\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in North Carolina. For anyone who thinks the state should only recognize marriage between heterosexual partners, the amendment is superfluous. By statute, North Carolina already prevents gay marriage. So does that make Amendment One some harmless reinforcement of the current statute?<\/p>\n<p>Not at all. The Amendment would hurt N.C. families, especially children and victims of domestic violence.<br \/>\nN.C. families depend on courts to enforce decisions about who can raise children, have visitation rights if someone is hospitalized, receive protection from domestic violence and make medical decisions. These legal arrangements are crucial for families who want to care for their children, spouses and partners. <\/p>\n<p>If Amendment One passes, North Carolina families of all sorts can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be sure courts will meet their needs. What if an unmarried person seeks a protection order from an abusive partner? What if an unmarried couple wants to guarantee the survivor would have custody of their children if one of the partners passes away? These people might not receive protection from the courts if Amendment One passes because it would prevent courts from recognizing domestic legal unions other than heterosexual marriage. In order for courts to enforce laws and private arrangements such as wills and powers of attorney, and thus carry out families\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wishes, there frequently has to be a domestic union of some kind. But if courts follow the amendment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plain meaning, protection orders, custody arrangements and a myriad of other legal tools for arranging private lives will become inaccessible to thousands of North Carolinians of all sexual orientations and ages.<\/p>\n<p>Such a narrowing of rights sends a clear signal: North Carolina does not welcome everyone. And that is exactly the wrong direction for the law to move in. As a law student, I have admired the gains of past civil rights activists. My constitutional law courses painted an inspiring picture. After the Civil War, the guarantee of equal protection under the law was written into the U.S. Constitution through the 14th Amendment. In the 20th century, the Supreme Court rejected racial discrimination in public schools, bans on interracial marriage and laws silencing protected speech. Congress and the president made voting, housing and employment more accessible. Despite the many difficulties that civil rights activists confront today, the broad trend of American law has been to allow more and more people to participate fully in the political, economic and social community.<\/p>\n<p>If Amendment One passes, it will be directly contrary to that inclusive trend. Some North Carolina citizens will not be able to participate fully in family life because they will not be able to rely on courts to uphold their choices about raising children and dealing with illness, death and divorce. Without a stable family life, participation in economic life is more difficult. Everyone would experience a diminished social life because the law would mark out some people as less deserving of protection. And if the law can degrade some of us, then it could degrade any of us.<\/p>\n<p>The fundamental lesson for me and other students would be that the law is still a way to stigmatize people. Who isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t learning from what happens in our state? If Amendment One passes, we will teach ourselves the law is a hostage to our intolerance, rather than our generosity. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let that happen \u00e2\u20ac\u201c vote against Amendment One.<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nChristopher J. Heaney is a second year law student at the UNC School of Law and treasurer of the law school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came to law school because I thought the law could make North Carolina a more inclusive community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25178"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25181,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25178\/revisions\/25181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}