OF ALL PLACES-- NORTH CAROLINA'S GOT OUR BACK

A dog was decked out for Equality at the Prop 8 protest in Greensboro:

Journal Photo by Christian Kloc

"Gay, straight, black, white, marriage is a civil right!" they yelled.

Folks in Greensboro, North Carolina were protesting California's Prop 8 over the weekend.

Isn't that kind and generous having OUR backs in a state from the South.  It shows you [com]passion is every where on the marriage equality issue.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported:  This was not Sunset Boulevard, but Market Street in downtown Greensboro yesterday. There, protesters challenged the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman in its state constitution. Justin Nichols, who helped organize the protest, said he's glad that North Carolina hadn't allowed voters to define marriage through a constitutional amendment. North Carolina remains the only southeastern state that hasn't done so.

"What went on in California is terrible," Nichols said.

N.C. Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, told the group gathered in front of the Guilford County Courthouse that the legislature has resisted passing a marriage amendment because, "We don't want to write discrimination and hate into our constitution."

Since 2003, North Carolina representatives have proposed a Defense of Marriage bill in every legislative session, each time seeing it rejected before it came to the floor for debate.

Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, a primary supporter of the bill, said that the amendment is a way to protect children from being raised by same-sex couples.

"We have a lot of experience with the way to raise children over many thousands of years, and we know a few things that don't work," Stam said in a telephone interview.

Stam worries that without an amendment, gay marriage is more likely to be legalized in the state. He cited the recent court decision allowing same-sex unions in Iowa as an example.

"Our constitutional and statutory regime is almost identical to Iowa," he said.

Meanwhile, advocates of same-sex marriage are less confident that gay unions will become legal in the short term.

"Marriage equality is not right around the corner in North Carolina, either through the legislature or the courts," said Ian Palmquist, the executive director of Equality North Carolina.

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