FOR Amendment One?

What are they thinking? That question has gnawed at me ever since I found out about the constitutional amendment that will appear on the ballot for the May 8 election in North Carolina. Here’s how it reads:
Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

I’m well aware of the potential harms of this amendment. So, I’ve had a lot of trouble understanding what those who have proposed it are thinking. I just don’t get it.

On Sunday a friend handed me a bulletin from her son’s church. This has helped clear some things up for me. In the bulletin, a full page was devoted to why church members need to pray for the “Marriage Amendment.”

I love how those who support the amendment have framed it as the “Marriage Amendment.” (It reminds me of the way people on Fox News refer to corporate executive types as "job creators", which justifies their entitlement to all the money their greedy little hands can grab.) The amendment's purpose, Christian proponents say, is to define marriage in the way God defines it in Genesis. Really? Where does that definition mention the part that says no other domestic unions will be considered legal in the state? No, this isn’t just about how we define marriage (which is something that should be amended in a dictionary, not a constitution). This is about how we will discriminate against couples who don’t conform to our definition of marriage. You can say they're not married, if you like. But why should the fact that they're not married, according to your definition, be a reason to deny them the same basic rights that married couples have? It would be more honest to call it the “Marriage Discrimination Amendment.”

Anyway, I was thankful that my friend passed this church bulletin along because it helped me to get inside the heads of those who favor the amendment. And basically, it comes down to this. When a constitutional amendment is approved by the people of our state, no “activist” judges (another interesting word choice) or legislators in the future will be able to change it without taking it back to the people for a vote. This way, the Walmart shoppers of North Carolina have the power to decide, not some hoity-toity Chapel Hill educated activists, whom we could never trust with such an important decision. (Because, let’s face it, “activist” is code for “liberal”, which is code for “God-haters”, which is code for “nobody I’ll ever have to worry about spending eternity with.”)

They have a good, rational argument. I have to admit that it makes perfect sense:
• For anyone who believes it’s all right for the majority to decide what’s best for the minority.
• For anyone who believes it’s desirable for one religious group to impose their values on everyone else because they’re right and everyone else is wrong.
• For anyone who believes the only way they can protect their rights is by denying the rights of others.
• For anyone who believes Christians were put on this earth to be the moral watchdogs for the rest of the world.
• For anyone whose chosen way of life is so precarious that recognizing any other way of life (whether chosen or not) is a threat.
• For anyone who believes those who fall outside the realm of what they deem acceptable are throw-away people and don’t have a right to be treated like people at all.
• For anyone who believes children should be punished for the way their parents live.

Yes, it makes perfect sense for anyone like that. But I don’t happen to be anyone like that. So it makes no sense to me.

It’s a travesty that we are voting on this. But we are. According to the logic of those who favor the “Marriage Amendment”, the people of North Carolina should be able to make this decision. They also insist that the majority of people in the state favor the amendment. This is where their reasoning fails me completely. I'm convinced that they’re wrong about that, as recent polls indicate. Most of the people in North Carolina do NOT favor Amendment One.

And that’s why it’s so important that people VOTE. For those who insist that the people of North Carolina have a right to make this decision, then let the people speak. For God’s sake, VOTE!