By Eden Stiffman and Lynn Bonner, The (Raleigh) News & Observer
Supporters of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage came to Raleigh on Tuesday with new confidence that the Republican-controlled legislature, eager to take on social issues, will back their cause.
About 3,500 people, including pastors and evangelists, assembled behind the state legislature to show their support for the gay-marriage ban. As a group of girls played patriotic music on their violins, rally-goers waved American flags of all sizes, tea party activists assembled their folding chairs, and young couples stood with Bibles in hand.
Clergy who support gay rights held a smaller news conference.
Sen. James Forrester, a Gaston County Republican and the sponsor of the bill, has repeatedly pushed the initiative over the past eight years. But now, with Republicans in control of the legislature for the first time in more than a century, the amendment has a better chance of getting on the ballot.
The proposed amendment needs a three-fifths vote in the House and the Senate in order to appear on the 2012 ballot. Currently, the count is close in both chambers. The bill would need 30 Senate votes, and has 23 sponsors. In the House, where 72 votes are needed, a constitutional amendment bill has 66 sponsors.
More than a dozen legislators who support the amendment attended the rally. Sen. Dan Soucek, a Republican from Boone and a bill sponsor, said that although "the opposition is ferocious," he is determined to write "correct moral standards" into the North Carolina constitution.
"We've been fighting for this for a long time," said Rep. Mitch Gillespie, a Republican representing Burke and McDowell counties, now in his seventh term. "I fully expect it to pass this year and I expect a large bipartisan vote on it."
To read the complete article, visit www.newsobserver.com.
Ultimately it's not going to matter which states write discrimination against law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples into their constitutions, nor will it matter which states grant marriage equality to those same couples, because it is the FEDERAL government that bestows most of the legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that married couples receive. This is an issue that the Supreme Court of the United States will eventually have to tackle, and I'm confident that they will decided that there is no Constitutional justification for denying Gay couples the same legal benefits that Straight couples have always taken for granted.The main sticking point is the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which was signed, to his eternal shame, by President Bill Clinton. DOMA is transparently unconstitutional, since it establishes differing legal standards for Gay and Straight couples in the United States. It would be preferable if Congress would simply repeal DOMA, but as cowardly as most of our elected officials seem to be, it will probably be up to the Supreme Court to declare DOMA unconstitutional.
WHY is DOMA unconstitutional? Consider: A Straight couple legally married in Iowa is automatically entitled to 1,138 legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities according to the Government Accounting Office (GAO). Many of those benefits have to do with tax law, Social Security, inheritance rights, child custody, and so on. But because of DOMA, a Gay couple that is legally married in Iowa is still unrecognized by the federal government for those benefits.
Consider, also, the "Full Faith & Credit" clause of the Constitution. Because of this, any Straight couple can fly off to Las Vegas for drunken weekend, get married by an Elvis impersonator, and that marriage is automatically honored in all 50 states, and at all levels of government. But thanks to DOMA, a Gay couple that is legally married in Iowa becomes UN-married if they relocate south to Missouri.
The ONLY real difference between a married Gay couple and a married Straight couple is the gender of the two people who have made the commitment. It has nothing to do with procreation, since couples do not need a marriage license to make babies, nor is the ability or even desire to make babies a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license. So there is really no constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that married Straight couples have always taken for granted. This cannot be accomplished in a piecemeal, state-by-state fashion; it is the FEDERAL government which, through its own actions, has made this a federal issue.
This is why I encourage all Gay couples, especially those who have been legally married in states like Iowa and Massachusetts, to file suit to have DOMA overturned. Gay Americans have had it up to HERE with being treated like second-class citizens.
Posted by: Chuck Anziulewicz | May 18, 2011 at 10:07 AM
why do southerners spend such effort to repeatedly violate the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution? Must be that old song....."separate but equal".
Posted by: wayne | May 18, 2011 at 10:11 AM
@Chuck
"The ONLY real difference between a married Gay couple and a married Straight couple is the gender of the two people who have made the commitment."
The difference is the gender of ONE of the two people who have made the commitment, and the sexual orientation of both.
It is gender discrimination!
Posted by: Mooki3b | May 18, 2011 at 02:12 PM