
{"id":25544,"date":"2012-05-03T10:24:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T14:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=25544"},"modified":"2012-05-02T18:49:05","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T22:49:05","slug":"for-the-record-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/05\/03\/for-the-record-22\/","title":{"rendered":"FOR THE RECORD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Around here, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be easy to think that Amendment One doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a snowball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chance in hell of passing. There certainly are more houses in Carrboro with anti-amendment signs than those without, and a week hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gone by in the past few months where there hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been a major fundraising event gathering support in the fight against the amendment. <\/p>\n<p>Really, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be hard-pressed to find someone in Carrboro announcing his or her support for this amendment \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the proposed amendment to our state constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Here at <em>The Citizen<\/em>, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten a number of letters against the amendment, and just one \u00e2\u20ac\u201c written by someone outside our coverage area \u00e2\u20ac\u201c supporting the amendment. <\/p>\n<p>But outside our little progressive enclave there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a danger, a real danger, that this amendment could in fact pass. Drive a few miles out of town and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sure to see signs proclaiming support for the amendment, and turn on your television and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see advertisements spewing the need to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153protect traditional marriage.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d On a recent drive down to the coast, I saw a mobile message board out front of a tiny church announcing the sins of homosexuality. <\/p>\n<p>We know we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to convince the vast majority of those who will read this editorial of the harms of Amendment One \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spent the past few months running op-eds spelling out those harms \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but we do worry that many around here might not be aware of the widespread support for this amendment, or the more general lack of knowledge of what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about.<\/p>\n<p>So for the love of this state, if you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already, please get out and vote against this thing. Bring someone with you to the polls. Start up a conversation about Amendment One, and tell anyone who will listen how this amendment will encroach on civil rights. <\/p>\n<p>The battle against this amendment has been long and hard-fought, and while a majority of voters still say they plan to support it, that number is shrinking, according to Public Policy Polling. Since last October, the number of voters supporting Amendment One has dropped from 61 percent to 54 percent, with voters against it growing from 34 percent to 40 percent, representing a 13-point swing.<br \/>\nIn addition, polls show 53 percent of voters support either gay marriage or civil unions, with 44 percent opposed. Amendment One would ban both gay marriage and civil unions, something that supporters of the amendment want to confuse voters about, at which they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve apparently been somewhat successful.<\/p>\n<p>What exactly would this amendment say about North Carolina? Well, for one, that our state doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t welcome gay people, gay couples or businesses that choose to provide benefits to domestic partners. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re pretty sure that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what the people of North Carolina want to be known for \u00e2\u20ac\u201c exclusivity and fear, that is. <\/p>\n<p>After all, this is the same state that President Obama just last week said had some of the friendliest people around, where even people who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t vote for him are nice to him.<br \/>\nAnd this amendment is about as far from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as you can get. <\/p>\n<p><em>For a complete list of voting sites and times, see page 3.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around here, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be easy to think that Amendment One doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a snowball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chance in hell of passing.<\/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-25544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25544","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=25544"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25700,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25544\/revisions\/25700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}