And the Marriage Amendment letters keep coming. Here’s a look at what we’ve gotten today. Some of these will be in the paper over the next few days. UPDATE: couple more at 1 p.m.:
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In this day and age where facts are manipulated daily to suit one’s agenda, there is at least one immutable fact, which no one can deny, and it is that the primary purpose of sex is procreation. Since procreation can take place only between a male and a female, that makes homosexual sex an aberration.
It matters not that there might be love, joy or commitment between two same-sex people. Nor does it matter whether gayness is a proclivity or written on one’s genes.
The fact, the truth, remains unchanged as long as the primary purpose of sex is procreation.
Therefore, to sanctify gay marriage would itself be an aberration. To sanctify any aberration is to elevate the abnormal to the normal, thus rendering both terms meaningless. If we have no normality, no accepted commonness, where then do we find that cohesiveness that binds us together as a people, a state and a nation?
Gay marriage can only serve to dilute and detract from the institution of marriage.
Let gays seek “their rights” elsewhere and not at the expense of the tradition and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.
Roy McCormick
Youngsville
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Congratulations to the state legislature for passing a bill that could lead to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. What better way to use valuable time and resources than to make permanent a transitory issue that’s already been dealt with by state law?
I’m anxious to see how many newly unemployed state workers will find jobs as a result of this action, or how quickly our state’s environmental conditions will improve. Why stop with just marriage? How about we formalize the definition of other important words, such as divorce (the legal endpoint of around 40 percent of marriages between one man and one woman), or distraction (that which diverts attention from important matters), or perhaps even discrimination (treatment of a person based on group, class, or category rather than merit)?
Still others come to mind: partisan, divisive, intolerant. These are challenging times – don’t we deserve better? How about integrity or vision? For that we need leaders rather than politicians.
D. Derek Aday
Cary
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Gene Nichol (Sept. 12 Point of View) would have us believe our new and highly effective N.C. legislature is wasting its (and our) time by allowing citizens to get to vote up or down on a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as we all have known it to be for the last 400 years in America. Where was Nichol when the White House and its allies in Congress were wasting their (and our) time, and far more of it, on changing the rules for homosexual service in the military? Why the silence on this bigger waste of time?
Nichol’s agenda is transparent as is the paper’s for printing it. Thankfully the majority of our legislators prefer to let the people of NC decide what is a marriage and what is not.
James I. Anthony Jr.
Raleigh
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Let’s not mince words. The mis-named “Defense of Marriage Act” is nothing more than legalized bigotry. It goes far beyond defining marriage – to quote: "Marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.”. It bars legal alternatives for same-sex couples – permanently relegating them to second-class citizenship. No domestic unions allowed.
Since we can’t legislate attraction, it means that some percentage of our citizens will forever be banned from societal support of a stable relationship in effect, we’d be stating a preference for promiscuous same-sex partnerships.
Advocates for the ban like to make slippery slope arguments. Let me make my own. There is legal precedent for banning marriage between ethnicities – it wasn’t that long ago that these bans were common. Enacting bans on one type of marriage sets the stage for reinstating other such bans.
Or how about this: If you have to prove your sexual preference to marry, why not to vote? Or have a job?
Bottom line: The Defense of Marriage Act is poorly written, poorly conceived, and based on bigotry and hate. It should be voted down, and quickly.
Bob Hablutzel
Raleigh
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With the major issues facing our state such as a high unemployment rate, changes in our healthcare system – specifically coverage for the uninsured – and continuing economic challenges for our public health services, it seems unbelievable that our legislators are spending time on trying to dictate which consenting adults can be married.
Sally Kohls
Raleigh
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What an embarrassment of a state North Carolina will have become if it passes the same sex marriage ban.
Shame on everyone who votes for such a despicable piece of legislation.
Tootie Marshall
Carrboro
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It’s amazing to me that no one has come across the perfect solution to this debate: If one wants to protect the sanctity of marriage, ban divorce.
David Michaels
Raleigh
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A recent letter to the editor appealed to tradition and society’s interest in the perpetuation of the species in support of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Tradition does not provide a simple and unchanging definition of marriage. Old Testament patriarchs and kings had multiple wives and concubines. “Tradition” permitted females to marry quite young. It prohibited interracial marriage in some U.S. states until 1967. Guidance on divorce, custody of the children in a broken marriage and remarriage varies according to which faith tradition is consulted.
My husband and I feel that by making a home and supporting each other ‘s developing personhood, we contribute to the strength of our families, friends and community. However, we married too late in life to have children. We are grateful that the state did not deny us a license on those grounds!
Human history demonstrates that marriage is an evolving concept that points away from tribal competition (pro-natal policies) and patriarchal domination, and toward mutual personal commitments between consenting adults, in an inclusive society that respects the worth and dignity of every human being. Our society does not suffer from too much love. I hope the so-called Defense of Marriage amendment will be defeated.
Susan Adley-Warrick
Raleigh
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I have lived in North Carolina all my life, but I am starting to have doubts about that. I don’t know what embarrasses me more:
The state constitution amendment banning gay marriage to be on the May ballot. Seriously, do the members of the N.C. House and Senate not have more pressing matters to tend to than this? To quote your editorial in the Sept. 13 N&O, “What a waste.”
Or the ever more nauseating Education Lottery TV ads that are thrown at me every night. How much does the Lottery Commission pay for this? And do they really think this crap is going to make anyone rush to the nearest convenience store to buy a ticket? It makes me want to rush to another country.
Guatemala is starting to look like a great place to relocate. They had nine candidates running for president in the last election, but that sort of chaos seems tame compared with the hypocrisy in Washington – and Raleigh.
Brad Bradshaw
Raleigh
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North Carolina’s legislators argued that they permitted the anti-gay amendment to go on the ballot in May because they wanted to give the people of North Carolina a chance to vote on the issue. If they wanted to ask the people, why didn’t they pass an amendment supporting marriage equality and ask us to vote on that?
The legislators shouldn’t insult us by pretending that their votes were about the democratic process; they were about hate and bigotry, and that’s all.
Julie Edmunds
Durham
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I read with interest that several members of the General Assembly seek to justify their vote for the same-sex marriage amendment by arguing that the people should be given the opportunity to decide this issue.
In adopting our Constitution, the people of North Carolina did not reserve the power to initiate constitutional amendments; they gave that power to the General Assembly, reserving only the right to reject an amendment proposed by the legislature.
The implicit understanding has been that the legislature will submit only proposals that three-fifths of the members of each chamber believe to embody sound public policy. This constitutional theory leaves no room for a legislator to decline to take a position on the merits of a proposed amendment.
Voting for a proposed amendment endorses the policy it embodies. Let there be no mistake about that.
Joseph S. Ferrell
Chapel Hill
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I looked at the Sept. 13 front-page picture of people who support having a gay-marriage ban placed on the May ballot. They seem to think that the voters should decide whether other people should have the same rights they do.
I wonder whether the African-American woman pictured would’ve been happy if white Southerners demanded a ballot question to decide integration rather than having Brown v. BOE do it? It took the Supreme Court to force North Carolina and the rest of the country to allow blacks and whites to marry. How does she think that would have worked out if it had been a ballot initiative?
Some things can’t be settled by a majority vote because sometimes the majority is just too ignorant, prejudiced or confused.
Rick Gagliardo
Pinehurst
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As a conservative, I’m troubled by any Republican who voted for the gay-marriage ban amendment. Republicans are supposed to be anti-government interference, anti-regulation and pro-individual liberty. Yet this amendment does the opposite of all of those things.
Furthermore, the concept of a gay marriage does nothing to harm others. It doesn’t infringe on someone else’s rights. If gay marriage doesn’t align with your values, teach your children what you believe. But don’t have government limit personal liberties of another person just because you disagree. That isn’t the answer.
Sean Godier
Wake Forest
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As North Carolina struggles with high unemployment and a depressed economy aided by the legislature’s budget cuts, lawmakers have decided to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot opposing same-sex marriage. This follows numerous bills to post the Ten Commandments in public schools and political opposition to anti-bullying laws because they protect young gay and lesbian people from abuse.
I have to ask whether we are a democratic republic or a theocracy like they have in the Middle East? I am reminded of the words contained in the treaty of Tripoli written by George Washington’s administration and signed into law by John Adams. It contains the words, “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” I wonder which group of North Carolinians in the future will have its rights up for a vote on a ballot?
Michael L. Monk
Raleigh
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From I’m sure dozens of photos taken at the anti-marriage amendment rally in Raleigh on Sept. 12 where a large crowd, both gay and straight, amassed to oppose the amendment, you chose the one photo with no more than a dozen quiet, unenthused stragglers and one lady off by herself praying.
The real truth about the rally was that there was a crowd of several hundred banner-waving, slogan shouting, emotionally charged North Carolinians singing “We Shall Overcome” and chanting “Hey, hey, Ho ho, Homophobia’s Got to Go!” Shame on you!
Gerda Presson
Raleigh
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It is wholly inappropriate for the North Carolina license plate to display a biplane. It should be replaced with a heteroplane, and the motto should be changed to “First in Intolerance.”
Forrest Smith
Holly Springs
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North Carolina has been my home since 1998. I have spent much of these last 13 years defending this state to those I left behind. Family and friends frequently ridicule the stereotypical characteristics of the South – that it is a socially backward, intellectually impoverished culture of ethnocentric, racist religious zealots. In turn,
I proudly extol the many positive attributes of NC – the low cost of living and the economic stability (relative to my home state), the natural beauty that I can enjoy all year, the diversity of the people – so many things that make this a great place to call home. But I have never felt so deeply and utterly ashamed to live here.
By bringing about a pending constitutional amendment to prevent gay marriage, and by demonizing gay marriage and gay rights with their ignorant and baseless claims of potential harm to our society, the leaders of this state are simply reinforcing every negative stereotype that the rest of the world believes about Southerners. These leaders have humiliated North Carolina in the eyes of intelligent society.
I can only hope that the voting public will exhibit more tolerance and intelligence than those who call themselves leaders. It is those “leaders” who should be ashamed.
Tammy Williams
Cary
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Many letter-writers support the amendment to ban gay marriage as a way of defending the biblical ideal of marriage. Read the Bible. The biblical ideal of marriage is one man, lots of wives, concubines, bride prices and arranged marriages. Is this what we are defending?
If our society’s ideas of marriage have changed, why are some so intent on returning to the past? The past is not what I want to return to.
If our legislature wants to do something to defend marriage, can we not do something about the 50 percent divorce rate? My concern is less the parents than the kids who now have to live with a lower standard of living, less well supervised, in two separate households, often with confusing and conflict-filled relationships.
That’s a problem I’d like to see tackled.
Janice Pinchot Woychik, MSW
Chapel Hill
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new ones after 1 p.m.:
As a moderately conservative, heterosexual senior citizen, I find the current debate over same-sex marriage both tragic and ironic. Tragic, because while over 10 percent of NC citizens are unemployed, our elected officials (who supposedly work in our best interest) take on issues that do absolutely nothing to fix the problems that affect all of us.
On another front, the conservative mantra has always been to keep big government smaller and out of our lives. I find it more than just a little ironic that these same yahoos who are pushing the legislation and claim to be conservative are now introducing more government control to new levels including inviting the law into the bedroom. And if the reason for doing this is religious, isn’t it up to God to pass judgment under the “Judge not lest ye too shall be judged” rule?
Get some help for your homophobia and stay out of people’s personal lives.
Rick Poillon
Atlantic Beach
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The picture of the guy in the Sept. 13 paper says it all. While our legislators wasted their time trying to regulate people's private lives and deny them constitutionally guranteed rights (remember "all men are created equal"?) he wears a sign asking how all this is going to help him find a job. Of course the answer is -- it's not. In fact, it may make it harder for him to get a job if companies decide to avoid our state.
It seems like every time our elected leaders are faced with some real and serious issues for which they don't have any politically expedient answers (like the economy, the environment, school funding, etc.) they go off on a tangent on some social issue. Denying one small minority their basic rights is easy, mindless and makes for great sound bites, but it doesn't solve any of the real problem facing our state.
In my lifetime I have seen laws passed that prohibited discrimination based on one's color, creed or ethnicity. Hopefully I will live to see sexual orientation added to that list. And for the record I am white, straight and Christian.
Martha Dorroh
Raleigh
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