As of late Tuesday night, CNN is projecting that the North Carolina’s Amendment banning same-sex marriage has passed.
Many are concerned that isn’t just same-sex couples who are affected. CNN.com explains:
The amendment would alter North Carolina’s constitution to say that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” Supporters argued that the amendment was needed to stop those trying to redefine marriage and ward off possible future actions of “activist judges.”
Opponents called the measure redundant and warned it could result in jeopardizing domestic violence protections for women and affect couples’ health benefits.
What do you think?
Is a ban on same-sex marriage constitutional?
How do you feel this amendment affects everyone, not just same-sex couples hoping to marry?
AP Photo
Think this controversy is a perfect example of why we have separation of church and state. If the state had decided to respect marriage as a religious ceremony and afford it no special recognition beyond “civil union”, opponents of same sex marriage could have preserved marriage as a religious ceremony defined as whatever-they-want while gay & lesbians receive the due process and equal protection entitled them.
I’d also note that, even if marriage doesn’t seem like a big right to some people, it is obviously an incredibly DURABLE right. Generally, the only way to lose that right is to be already married or to die. You could be on death row for killing your spouse, could have admitted murdering the person you were married to, you have forfeited your liberty and many other rights, but you could STILL get married again if you found someone of the opposite sex to consent. Not even killing a spouse voids your right to get married again. Now _that_ is… Read more »
I think the issue of same-sex marriage ought to be couched as sex discrimination as well as sexual orientation discrimination, and I think labeling same-sex marriage as “gay marriage” can be misleading sometimes. I know this is a rare way to look at it, but I see it this way: If I weren’t already married, I should have the right to marry another unmarried adult as long as that person can and does consent to be married to me. That person could be male or female or something else. It’s really none of the government’s business what the gender of… Read more »
Looks like someone took inspiration from my Constitution.
Article 18 :
“Marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, as well as the family, motherhood and parenthood, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland”.
They shouldn’t have banned other unions, though.
It makes a lot of sense to me to say that being separate will lead to being unequal. In practice, though, our society already makes occasional exceptions to that in other areas. There are parts of the public realm in which the assumption is that separate can be equal. For example, separate college sports teams for men and women, separate restrooms, separate accommodations for people in wheelchairs, separate Olympic events for male and female athletes, etc. I’m not saying these are bad things. Just that there are plenty of loopholes to the “separate can’t be equal” idea, and there seems… Read more »
Here’s what I’d add to the idea that separate but equal never works: that it is especially true when discussion normative vs non-normative groups. In this case, straight=normative and lgb=non-normative. LGB identities have been cast as a societal “other.” This means that anything that creates a separation between the two will continue to put LGB identities in the category of “other” and thus not equal. The same could be said of civil rights for African-Americans. The ‘white’ way of life was normative…to be white was to be normal, anything other than white was a societal “other.” Thus, merely having two… Read more »
Although there are probably precedents limiting this, the U.S. Constitution still says that a contract that is valid in one state is valid in all the other states. You could make a very good case that NC has to recognize same-sex unions granted in other states. I’m in a heterosexual marriage. I wasn’t married in North Carolina, but if I moved there the state would consider me married. I wouldn’t have to get married in NC to be considered married there.
Disappointing for same-sex couples living there who want to get married, but not the end of the world either.
I’ve four letters for you: DOMA. It’s not just precedents…it’s a flipping law. DOMA is basically two parts: 1) The federal government isn’t required to recognize same-sex marriage even if a state makes it legal and 2) No state is required to recognize the same-sex marriage laws of another state.
What, you say, isn’t that unconstitutional? Well yes, now that you mention it, that does seem to be really obviously unconstitutional. But it passed anyway, and it’s taken this long for it to be a big enough issue that the Supreme Court will be hearing suits against it.
The federal courts have ruled that there is a ‘public policy exception’ to the recognition by states of ‘foreign’ marriages(those entered into in other states). That essentially means a state does not have to recognize a marriage which is abhorrent to it’s own public policy on marriages. This ‘public policy exception’ was formulated so states did not have to recognize polygamous marriages contracted in other states. (Meaning Utah)
And then they went and passed DOMA on top of it. Tell you just how paranoid they were that same-sex marriage might become legal.
I spoke before I knew all the facts. (First time for everything, I suppose….) Thanks for clarifying that.
Good point. SSM proponents run away from the parallel issue of the re-legalization of polygamy but it is the same argument in principle, defining and limiting marriage based on a that definition.
Banning SSM is no more unconstitutional than the banning of polygamy. I would hope that they support the repeal/overturning of that ban as well.
I think that when you tell a person he or she does not have the same rights as another it is unconstitutional. That’s pretty basic. The constitution is a legal document, so any discussion of this in that terms will be a legal argument. And you can not make any viable legal argument to deny any person the right to get married. The argument against gay marriage is entirely a moral one. Some people believe homsexuality is immoral. And that is almost always based on their religious beliefs. It’s clear that in states that identify as very religious statistically amongst… Read more »
These laws send a message about where non-hetero couples stand in current society – they are second-class citizens unworthy of equal rights. In addition, it invalidates all but hetero couples. It’s simply codifying the idea that people can love who they love – love can only be between a man and women.
It’s fundamentally upsetting to me, both as a bi person and as an American citizen. Moreover, it concerns me greatly for the direction we’re headed this November.
Why not just give the LGMT community what they want? Why stigmatize the LGBT community further than they are already stigmatized and marginalized? These types of decisions hurt so many people on levels that run very deeply.
“LGBT..”.
Why stigmatize them? Because it was easier to stigmatize all marriages that aren’t one man/on woman than to actually fix the stuff that’s wrong in this state and just as much of a rallying point for a large portion of the masses. Its like this which do you think is easier? Do something about education funding that is so lacking that a school disctict here in NC were having fundraisers to pay teacher salaries, the unemployment rate that just recently fell below the national average (there are almost 1/2mil unemployed in NC right now), and the process of fracking (short… Read more »
Off topic but I need some humour: I totally read ‘fracking’ like a Battlestar Galactica nerd.
Its okay. I thought the same when I first heard about it.
It’s my uinderstanding that they also ban same sex unions which I thought would be a reasonable compromise.
Yes – this went a step further to make a same-sex marriage ban, already in state law, part of state charter. In addition, it bans ALL civil unions and domestic partnerships. Granted, for couples of *any* orientation, but I’d say the majority were not hetero. Moreover, and more importantly, that was the *only* option for non-straight couples.
There is no compromise. We’ve already established in the U.S. that separate does not mean equal…and the same thing is true of marriages. Even if you give civil unions all the same legal rights (like they did in California), marriage is still normative…and civil unions are still socially stigmatized and marginalized.
I’m not going to accept a compromise when it comes to my civil rights.
Precisely. As soon as you start differentiating between two things in the law those two things will eventually (if no immediately) become unequal.
I’m not sure making life harder on even more people counts as ‘compromise’.
This is wrong. Compromising with wrong still tends to make you wrong.
I do not see how defining marriage adversely affects DV protections. It seems like an unrelated concern.
As for same sex marriage, I believe the outdated model of hetero marriage is not something the gay and lesbian community should want to emulate. I think a fresh definition of the joining of two people would afford them the chance to create a superior version and not get mired in the current, faded model.
Ok, but for the gay couples who do want to live their life together and raise kids, presumably they should have the right.
I realise that some people want to be “Married”, that other terms are unacceptable. I am proposing that, if the joining of two adults is called anything other than marriage, then new laws, new social obligations and privileges can be established that are far superior to the pit of despair that I see marriage between a man and a woman is in the western world. I concede I may have issues where hetero marriage is concerned; I see it as something to be surpassed, not emulated. To me, the relationship is the key, not what I call it. Whether I… Read more »
I do not see how defining marriage adversely affects DV protections. It seems like an unrelated concern. From what I recall this line comes from the fact there have been a few cases (in Ohio I think) in which domestic violence convictions have been overturned with reasons having to do with the fact that the abuser/victim were not married. Bearing in mind that linking something to harming women is a an appeal to chivalry and poof you have “if you support Amendment One you don’t care about women” angle. What bothers me is that this is not going to be… Read more »
It’s a bit of a stretch, but then pretty much all of the “it could affect hetero people too” arguments are a bit of a stretch. I think it’s an attempt to use whatever methods possible to make people actually sit up and care about it. If on-the-fence straight people suddenly think that they’re own rights might be in jeopardy, then they might actually get up and do something about it.
I’m not saying that’s a good tactic…I just think that’s the logic behind it.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but then pretty much all of the “it could affect hetero people too” arguments are a bit of a stretch. I don’t even think this was a case of “it could affect hetero people too”. It was straight up “what about teh wimminz”. As in “if you don’t care about gays then at least think about women” (yes I see how this basically ignores gay women). If on-the-fence straight people suddenly think that they’re own rights might be in jeopardy, then they might actually get up and do something about it. I agree that… Read more »
It was a concern for straight women, directly, yes…but see, everyone knows a straight woman. It was an attempt to make this bill hit close to home even if you don’t know any out same-sex couples. It could affect hetero women directly, and hetero men indirectly. It was saying – see your own family might be affected by this, if your own mother/sister/daughter/etc ends up in a relationships with an abusive man. That’s what I meant when I said it could affect “hetero people” as opposed to just saying “hetero women.” Yeah it’s playing on the old DV stereotypes and… Read more »
Eh, you end up finding a whole lot ‘lying for Jesus’ in any cause. It’s self-defeating in the long run, but it’s fairly typical of the short-term thinking that’s come to dominate in America.