Last evening, my wife and I sat in front of the television, watching the tallies roll in for North Carolina’s Primary. We grew more despondent as it became clear that Amendment 1, a measure banning same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state of North Carolina, was going to pass and be incorporated into the North Carolina Constitution. My wife was nearly physically sick at the thought of the level of bigotry and ignorance present in the Fundamentalist majority who voted to try to restrict the lives and relationships of those around them into the narrow definitions of their religious beliefs, while I started worrying about the financial and social impacts such a vote will have on the state of North Carolina in the upcoming years.
Before I went to sleep, I was flipping through a copy of Aesop’s Fables and I came across one that hit a little too close to home after the horrible results of the vote on Amendment 1:
One day, a Man went into a Forest and asked the Trees if they would be so good as to give him a handle for his axe. The trees readily granted his request and gave him a piece of tough Ash. But no sooner had the man fitted it into his axehead, than he quickly began to use it, and laid about him so vigorously that the giants of the forest fell under his strokes.
“Alas!” said a doomed Oak to a Cedar, “the first step lost us all. If we had not given up our rights to the Ash, we might have stood for ages.”
North Carolina (along with most of the rest of the South) is well known for its religiously conservative views, so it wasn’t a surprise to most that Amendment 1 passed. It appears North Carolina hasn’t changed much from the state that, in 1875, passed an Amendment to the former NC Constitution banning interracial marriage “forever”:
Well, forever, or until the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated anti-miscegenation laws in 1967...
As Gene Nichol, Law professor at UNC’s Law School puts it:
[Amendment 1] secures no liberties, alters no decision-making structures, opens no doors to a broader swath of the citizenry. Instead, through its phrases, a powerful majority enshrines its supremacy over a small and disfavored minority. It expresses hostility in the most distinctive way available. It carves it into our constitution. It declares, in effect, that “in this foundational matter, thou shalt never be equal.”
In my opinion, issues of Human Rights should never be decided by a majority vote. I’m not saying that the incorporation of this Amendment into the NC Constitution is necessarily going to open to the door to additional laws oppressing the gay population of the state, but it certainly is a huge step in the wrong direction.
I’m not exactly sure we go from here. Are we going to have to wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the issue, like Loving v. Virginia in 1967 that finally invalidated the anti-miscengenation laws after nearly 100 years in the NC Constitution? I certainly hope not. I hope the population of North Carolina sees this as a shot across the bow to the liberties and rights of more than just a minority of individuals in the state. I hope people open their eyes and dispel their ignorance of what impact this Amendment could (and probably will) have on ALL unmarried couples, and change their minds. I hope the unregistered and apathetic voters sit up and take notice, and make it out to the polls when a proposition is raised to repeal this Amendment. I’ll be there doing my part, and I hope you will, too.
Possibly related posts (auto-generated):
May 9th, 2012 on 2:44 PM
Good thoughts, Ross, on a difficult night. I felt the same way when California passed Prop8. I was appalled and amazed at the narrow-mindedness of my fellow citizens (though I suppose by now I shouldn’t be). I feel like California is on its way to righting the wrong, but of course it will take time.
I think the only solace I take from Prop8 and yesterday’s vote is that across the board young people have rejected this type of institutionalized bigotry. It may take a generation to fix, but it will fall. I’m just sorry our generation couldn’t carry the day.
May 9th, 2012 on 2:51 PM
So, you are saying that giving gays the right to marry (the axe handle) gives them the tool they need in order to destroy marriage in general/society (the forest).
Living in NC this couldn’t have surprised you. You are the only person that has a right to complain as you live there and I assume you voted against it.
I disagree with your statement that this shouldn’t have been done by a popular vote. In my opinion that is only way to do this and is the only way of ammending the state constitution. One day popular opinion may change while the people in charge are still very conservative and the power of the people to ammend the constitution could be used again.
As it stands, North Carolinians are dead set against gay marriage by a great majority (well of those that cared enough to even show up). I bet the people voting for got almost all their people to the polls. I wonder what the percentage was for people voting against.
Like I said, this couldn’t have surprised you.
Generally laws taking something away or limiting something to certain people are bad, but that is the libertarian in me coming out. Well, no plural marriages in NC. So it goes.
May 9th, 2012 on 4:56 PM
Good for you, Ross. Maybe this will encourage people to become more involved and take a better look at the people who are governing them. Pretty sick all around. I hope the people of North Carolina don’t have to wait another 100 years for this vile garbage to get rescinded.
May 9th, 2012 on 7:30 PM
I struggle with how we can be so afraid of this (gay marriage) and get all up in arms about it, yet things where people are really suffering (poverty just to name one) is something that isn’t blessed with the same populous impetus to change. It makes me so frustrated. It seems like we’re fighting over what color to paint the house, while paying no attention to the crumbling foundation and rotting beams. UGH.
May 10th, 2012 on 2:52 PM
You aren’t going to like this “humor” then :)
http://www.happyplace.com/15924/what-north-carolinas-next-ten-amendments-will-probably-look-like
May 22nd, 2012 on 12:32 AM
Ross,
I hope what I say will be understood; especially when the accepted thing for me to do would be to say nothing.
I respectfully abstain on this issue. It is one of many that is a Catch-22 for me; too many people that come down on extreme sides of it will be angry with me no matter what I say.
I spoke my opinion– not on marriage, but on my personal story and experience about same-gender relationships. On Vox. I was openly harassed, ridiculed, and even stalked for it. I am not making this up, and I am trying to be plain without melodramatic overtones, although I am most likely failing.
I have been blasted because I don’t neatly fall into anyone’s camp; there is always something for someone to be angry with me about. Because I am associated with such-and-such, or them-and-thems, or something else that was WRONG in their eyes, or not a “we” or an “us”.
Harassed by whom? Probably not who you’re thinking, or the sort of person you think would do so.
I have a personal opinion that I do share with friends and family I trust. You’d probably find it reasonable. But I’m not leaving myself open to ridicule, I hope. Ask me privately, and not here. And I am NOT going to be dragged into any fights. I’ve seen plenty of name-calling all around and I don’t want any more of that, thanks all the same.