gay marriage

"Just give everybody a chance to have the life they want."
Clint Eastwood
Do you believe that...well do you punk?

This eloquent piece by Jacob Tobia gets to the heart of the pain and sense of disenfranchisement that pro-equality residents in North Carolina have felt over the last couple of weeks. I first met Jacob when he was one of the cast of Duke's production of The Laramie Project several months ago, and met up again at the Point Foundation conference honoring its scholars, past and present. On September 12 we, along with hundreds of other members of the community, attended the Duke and Durham: Love=Love Candlelight Vigil , just before the NC Senate voted to place the discrimination amendment on the May 2012 ballot. When he emailed me about his piece I knew that I would want to share it with you...

An Open Letter to the NC General Assembly

By Jacob Tobia

Dear NCGA,

Hey, it’s me. I don’t know if you remember me or not, but we used to be pretty good friends. Do you remember that awkward high schooler who stood at the dais of the Senate back in 2007 when he was a Senate page? You remember, the one who had just gotten a haircut because his father said that he should look presentable at the legislature. The one who had long, brown, curly hair before then. You don’t remember me? But I stood right at the front of the Senate sessions, just to the right of the now-governor Beverly Perdue.

Hat tip to NC Policy Watch for keeping up with the crazies.

It is really about one thing: preserving the historic understanding of sexuality, gender, and the family in North Carolina, and protecting the right of parents and the Church to transmit traditional values about these core issues to the next generation.

Unless I've misread the US Constitution, the state has no business protecting the right of the church to do anything, as if there is one "church" to be protected. That's god's job, and if he or she can't get 'er done without legislative treason, we'll have to take "omnipotent" out of the job description.

It's time to boycott North Carolina

"Different things can be treated differently if the things or people are in a very different relationship."

--North Carolina House Majority Leader Paul "Skip" Stam (R), referring to gay and lesbian same-sex couples and their eligiblity for civil equality, at a debate at UNC-CH Law School, 9/21/2011

Well, Skip this "thing" (a native North Carolinian, who pays her taxes and is in a legal marriage not recognized by my state already) is calling for a boycott of this great state. We have a state economy in the crapper (10.4% unemployment), a state budget in crisis, and quite a few pro-LGBT companies and institutions located here that don't deserve to be punished by a boycott.

Two events of significance are coming up this week in North Carolina's fight to beat back the discriminatory, job-killing marriage amendment measure that is going to go on the ballot next May.

When Republican Dale Folwell, Speaker Pro-Tem in a press conference on August 30th described the introduction of a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage he made a curious statement about the lineage of traditional marriage in North Carolina:

We all know about the time tested definition of marriage in North Carolina going back to 1655.

He was no doubt referring to the year that Nathaniel Batts, a fur trader and land speculator, became North Carolina’s first permanent European settler. Batts came from Virginia to establish residence in 1655 in a 20 foot square brick house with 2 rooms and a chimney on the Bertie peninsula between the Roanoke and Chowan rivers, noted in maps of the time as "Batts House".

Full video (27 minutes) via Barry Smith of M2M Politics of the press conference today at the NC General Assembly where Republican Representatives Dale Folwell, Speaker Pro-Tem, and a posse of religiots, continue the introduction of a state constitutional amendment to ban something that is already banned in North Carolina: gay marriage.

This press conference had many low points. Johnny Hunter's anatomy lesson with locks and keys begins at 05:20. The full text of Barry Smith's M2M Politics report is posted as: Black ministers back gay marriage ban

Full video (31 minutes) of the press conference yesterday at the NC General Assembly where Republican Representatives Dale Folwell, Speaker Pro-Tem, and Paul "Skip" Stam, Majority Leader, announced the upcoming introduction of a state constitutional amendment to ban something that is already banned in North Carolina: gay marriage. Meanwhile President Barack Obama declared federal disasters in seven NC counties as Hurricane Irene destroyed more than 1,000 homes, decimated NC Highway 12 and croplands were flooded, with initial damage estimates of over $70 $190 $400 million. Glad to know they've got their priorities straight.
 

With the state still recovering from Irene, a string of severe storms last night, and massive unemployment, these two NC GOP leaders decide it would be a great time to hold a press conference on ... gay marriage.

Thom Tillis opens mouth and inserts foot.

Tillis was married once -- then divorced -- then married again in Massachusettes.

And he has the audacity to say that gay marriages are less stable than straight marriages?

Outrageous!

Tillis = hypocrite