NORTH CAROLINA. – A majority of North Carolina voters oppose a Republican proposed constitutional amendment that would ban the state from recognizing same-sex marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships. Fifty-five percent would vote against the amendment and only 30 percent would vote in favor of the amendment.
The recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey also found that 61 percent oppose gay marriage, and just 31 percent said they would want it to be legal.
“It’s pretty simple: North Carolinians don’t support gay marriage but they also don’t think this constitutional amendment is necessary,” said Dean Debnam, president of PPP. “And they also think this particular proposal goes too far by targeting civil unions, which many voters in the state support.”
North Carolina currently does not recognize same-sex marriages or any other form of legal recognition of same sex-unions.
Republicans in the state however, who now control both chambers of the legislature, believe there is plenty of support for the amendment
‘”We need to put the decision to the people so that they can define what marriage is, and not us,’’ Speaker Pro Tempore Dale Folwell (R-Forsyth), said at a news conference. “‘Why shouldn’t the people of North Carolina have the right to vote on something as important as this issue?’”.
Alex Miller, interim executive director at Equality North Carolina said, “Over the past year, Equality North Carolina has had thousands of conversations with citizens from across the state of every age, race and background who oppose this discriminatory legislation and the harm it would cause to LGBT North Carolinians, our economy and our state’s reputation.”
A majority may disagree, but by placing this vote on the same day with the Republican primcontracts conservatives have really stacked the deck in their favor.
Besides being a piece of hateful legislation, this is also bad for jobs as it bans domestic partner bennefits for gays and straights and would invalidate tens of thousands of employment contracts.
The text of the proposed amendment bans Civil Unions, but does explicitly allow courts to adjudicate private contracts. It will be interesting to see if these two factoids violate the one topic rule typical in propositions.