MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts today interviewed anti-gay North Carolina lawmaker Tracy Philbeck, and pro-LGBT Democrat Robert Kellogg on the state’s highly controversial Amendment One, which is on the May 8 ballot but for which early voting begins tomorrow. Amendment One not only amends North Carolina’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage, but effectively “divorces” same-sex and opposite sex couples who are not married but have civil unions or domestic partnership, demanding that the only legally recognized relationship in North Carolina will be one-man, one-woman marriage.
Tracy Philbeck, the Republican Gaston County Commissioner who is fond of quoting Bible scripture in justification of his opposition to marriage equality, told Roberts Amendment One “doesn’t add discrimination, it simply reinforces the statute that we have on the books already.” Philbeck claimed, of course, “what the opposition would like to do is redefine marriage.”
Philbeck added, “at the end of the day, this vote is about reinforcing marriage between a man and a woman,” and stated that “historically, marriage as an institution was here before North Carolina was founded, before the United States of America was founded, and this is an institution that was created by God. I as an elected official will stand up for these issues and support traditional marriage.”
Since marriage is already legally defined in North Carolina, Amendment One is not only repetitive, but destructive. And since there is something called the First Amendment, Philbeck legislating via the Bible is unconstitutional, a fact the Republican should examine.
Robert Kellogg, the Gaston County Democratic Party Chairman, told Roberts “there is a growing support across North Carolina and on a local level” for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. Kellogg added:
If this amendment does pass it will have far-reaching consequences and not just gays and lesbians but for all families in North Carolina. This will be an attack on families that will — that are not traditional families. Elderly couples who live together because they can’t make ends meet, women who have orders of protection against abusive partners. Children who have health care, domestic partner benefits, where they are offered in their places of employment. This has far reaching consequences for North Carolina far beyond the gay and lesbian issue.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
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