North Carolina gay, lesbian, transgender, and straight parents are fighting back against the Republican, Christian conservative attack on unmarried families, known as Amendment One, with these two new videos. Amendment One — on which early voters are already voting, though May 8 is the official voting day — would not only write anti-gay discrimination directly into North Carolina’s constitution, but because it is so broadly written, it would make marriage the only form of legal recognition for all families and all couples, regardless of gender.
No longer would domestic partnerships be recognized. As these videos explain, children of unmarried gay or straight, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender unmarried parents will lose their health insurance immediately, and victims of domestic abuse would lose their protection orders.
Karen Ocamb, writing at LGBT POV reports:
In just over two weeks, on May 8, the LGBT community has an opportunity to defeat the antigay Religious Right forces behind the horrid antigay ballot measure Amendment One in North Carolina. Prop 8 mastermind Frank Schubert is now working in that red state (and in Maine where he is doing the same thing) organizing a faith-based effort to pass the antigay initiative. Next Sunday, April 29, Schubert and the antigay VoteForMarriage campaign are launching â€Marriage Sunday†that will promote the premise that churches and antigay Christians have a right to discriminate when it comes to civil marriages. In this video, with clear elements of the National Organization of Marriage’s divisive strategy to pit African Americans against gays, Dr. Mark Creech, Executive Director of the Christian Action League, says:
“Politics simply means the affairs of the people. Jesus, our lord, was in the very middle of the affairs of the people. And he taught that his people ought to be in the very middle of the affairs of the people so the church has a role to play in bringing righteousness to bear upon the political process. And that’s why it’s so very important that the church be involved in this campaign to protect marriage as one man and one woman.â€
But the antigay Christian leaders are silent on the very real harm the initiative would have by recognizing ONLY heterosexual marriage as legal in the state – something the Chad Griffin/Mark Armour-produced TV ads with real people for the bi-partisan Protect All North Carolina Families campaign underscore by contrast. Wonder what Jesus would say about the churches intentionally harming children in His name. I mean – even David Blankenhorn, Protect Marriage’s expert witness in the federal Prop 8 trial, opposes Amendment One.
In “‘It’s just an act of meanness’,” Washington Blade writer Chris Johnson examines Amendment One closely, and offers interviews with Shana Carignan and Megan Parker Carignan, one of the couples affected. The Carignans, while not legally married, have a four-year-old special needs child and care for an elderly woman. They could lose almost everything — including custody, healthcare, benefits, even the terms of their will could be negated — if Amendment One passes.
You can help protect all North Carolina families by making a donation to the Coalition to Protect North Carolina Families, and by sharing these videos. This man, Ocamb notes, is “the straight ally who put up $100,000 in a match fund grant on why he’s involved in the campaign against Amendment One.”