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The Carrboro Board of Aldermen supports civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

“Election Day victories by anti-gay activists in California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas were a painful reminder that the gay rights movement is still encumbered by old ideas and strategies,” a resolution passed Tuesday night says.

Gay and lesbian couples are denied more than 1,000 federal rights and benefits automatically bestowed by civil marriage, the resolution continues. They include health care coverage, tax benefits, divorce, domestic violence protections, privileges under immigration and naturalization law, inheritance rights, survivor benefits and child custody.

Carrboro was one of the first towns in the state, maybe the South, to establish a domestic partner registry for same-sex couples and offer health benefits to the domestic partners of town employees.  

Mayor Mark Chilton says he knows at least one Carrboro couple that flew to California to get married before Proposition 8 made gay marriage there illegal.

“We’re constantly faced with issues we have limited authority over,” Chilton says. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion about it.”