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According to Think Progress, those pushing that awful anti-marriage equality amendment in North Carolina have wasted no time in pushing lies in order to scare up votes:
Conservatives supporting North Carolina’s proposed constitutional amendment banning recognition of all same-sex relationships have launched a new website called Vote For Marriage NC. The site describes same-sex marriage as a “threat” and a “new legal orthodoxy” that would “redefine” marriage as “genderless” for all couples, and those who do not agree “will be treated under the law just like racists and bigots, and will be punished for their beliefs.” Unsurprisingly, none of the claims made stand up to scrutiny.
My fellow blogger, Zack Ford, who works at Think Progress, breaks it down He does such an excellent job that it needs to be passed around to as many North Carolinians as possible:
REALITY – The only example conservatives ever cite is a New Jersey Methodist pavilion, and that pavilion did not actually have a religious exemption.
CLAIM – “Religious groups like Catholic Charities in Boston and Washington DC have had to choose between fulfilling their social mission based on their religious beliefs, or acquiescing to this new definition of marriage.”
REALITY – Catholic Charities have never been obligated to shut down their services, but have done so voluntarily when they are no longer subsidized by the state because they discriminate.
REALITY – Again, no group has been forced to close, though some may lose state funding. In one case, the Maine Catholic Diocese shuttered a homeless support agency as punishment for supporting marriage equality.
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Can we please also point out, yet again, that Catholic Charities in Boston actually placed 13 children with gay or lesbian couples over the course of nearly 2 decades while under contract with the Commonwealth? And that in most jurisdictions (certainly Massachusetts, Illinois and DC) adoption laws were equalized long before the creation of equal marriage or civil unions (in IL), so the charity would have been out of compliance with the law if they had not treated gay or lesbian potential parents equally.
No out come of the vote on May 8th can possibly end up with marriage equality. Even though all their supposed “threats” that could happen if marriage equality are wrong, it should be pointed out that there is no chance of marriage equality resulting from the amendment vote, so at best their wrong points are moot.
I understand that sentiment, but I would say that it’s very important to vote “no” and defeat this anti-marriage, anti-equality, discriminatory amendment. The reason is that it is much harder, at both the federal level, and at the state level to repeal a constitutional amendment. Plus a court can strike down a regular law passed by the Legislature. A court however, when making rulings, must *always* follow the constitution, no matter what it says or what people would like it to say. So while practically things won’t change for the hundreds of loving couples in North Carolina, legally things will change, and not for the better. So as a former North Carolinian and as a closet bi man, I urge everyone to vote no and do whatever they can to defeat this amendment.