for the record...



photo by essygie, flickr


If I still lived in NC, today I would vote AGAINST Amendment One...the proposed amendment to the NC Constitution which would define marriage as between one man and one woman and would "void other types of domestic unions from carrying legal status."

Gay marriage is already illegal in NC. The amendment will just make it harder to change that in the future. But the amendment also threatens custody, abuse protection, health care, and heath care decisions for both minors and adults in families without a marriage certificate. And that's just nuts.

For the record...I support gay marriage. Not just domestic partnership...marriage. In the church. I believe a man and a man or a woman and a woman can commit themselves to each other for a lifetime family of faith, including having and raising children. I believe this not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith. I believe Jesus would dance at gay weddings and turn their water into the most fabulous wine.

This is what I believe, but even if I didn't, I hope that I would still reject Amendment One, because it is redundant, mean-spirited, dangerous (to heterosexual families, too) and does nothing to protect marriage. My marriage is not threatened by gay couples. My children's view of relationships is not threatened by gay couples. They will not become either homosexual or heterosexual because of the marriages they see. What can threaten marriage in our society is not laws allowing for it, but a society that is flippant with relationship commitment...of any kind.

I know that the Amendment is likely to pass, not because a majority of NC citizens necessarily support it but because the voting population does. I hope that I am wrong, but I am skeptical. I believe that even if it does pass, it will be overturned eventually, because that is the direction our country is headed, one slow step at a time. I suppose that is why the Amendment was proposed...to halt those steps for a time. It won't be forever...this I believe...but in the meantime, families and individuals will be needlessly hurt by this Amendment. And that just makes me sad.