Saturday, April 21, 2012 12:33 AM

Vote against marriage amendment

The voters of North Carolina need to realize that in addition to limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, as state statute already does, this bill would also prohibit any other form of relationship recognition, such as civil union or domestic partnership. This kind of language has been used in other states to take away private benefits such as health insurance for unmarried opposite-sex couples and their children. These amendments have also been used to challenge other private contracts between couples. The amendment would not only write the current discriminatory marriage law into the Constitution, it would actually take away rights and responsibilities that are currently available to some couples. This is unacceptable. Trying to alter the state Constitution to legitimize discrimination against taxpaying Americans should not be a priority or agenda of politicians. People are looking for solutions to real problems, not divisiveness and smokescreen rhetoric on social issues. Gay Americans are not pawns in some political power game. Marriage is defined by commitment, not gender. As it stands now, there is no recognition from the government for insurance, joint taxes, wills, benefits such as annuities, military survivor benefits, pension plans, Social Security, Medicare and thousands of other legal benefits. How would you feel if your lifes mate was very ill and when you went to the hospital you were denied full access because you werent married or related? Denying same sex couples these basic human rights is shameful. Making it the law should be unthinkable. The anti-gay amendment causes real harm. It harms couples who will be denied even the most basic protections and it harms vulnerable LGBT young people by sending a terrible message that their state and their neighbors consider them second-class citizens unworthy of basic dignity and fair treatment, a message which exacerbates the epidemic of LGBT young people committing suicide. The anti-gay amendment is bad for business. It intrudes on businesses right to provide competitive benefits to their employees, and it signals to major employers that our state is not welcoming of the diverse, creative workforce that is needed to compete in the global economy. The anti-gay amendment is a distraction from the voters priorities. The legislature was sent to Raleigh to tackle jobs, the economy and the state budget, not to advance a divisive social agenda. Marriage is already denied same-sex couples by state law. The amendment doesnt change marriage in any way. It simply attacks LGBT North Carolinians and puts their basic rights up for a vote. Amending the Constitution is an extreme act, not a conservative one. Constitutions are designed to protect rights and not to take them away. The rights of a minority should never be put to a majority vote. There is no justification for providing tax breaks and other state-sponsored benefits from civil marriage to heterosexual couples and not to same-sex couples. What could be more Christian in its approach, as to providing two otherwise unrelated people with legal next of kin status so that they can take care of each other in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, till death do they part? By agreeing to care for each other and combining their financial resources to provide for each other, the two people involved are that much less likely to become burdens on society, so everyone benefits. If marriage were truly about procreation and child-rearing and nothing else, then we would make couples pass a fertility test before getting married, outlaw divorce and annul the marriages of couples who fail to procreate or adopt children within a certain number of years after getting married. But of course we wouldnt dream of doing those

things. Because we understand that marriage has positive benefits for the two people involved in the marriage, and for society in general whether they raise children together or not. All of the gay couples I know are in long term, stable, relationships. Theyre just asking for the same rights and respect. In truth, every major organization devoted to child health and welfare in this country agrees that the children of samegender couples are just as likely to be healthy and well-adjusted as the children of opposite-gender couples. The American Psychological Association found that There is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation: Lesbian and gay parents are just as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children. Period. Recently the American Medical Association also weighed in, adopting a policy position declaring that excluding samesex couples from marriage is discriminatory and reaffirming existing AMA policy to support relationship recognition of same-gender couples as a means of addressing health disparities faced by those couples and their children. There was a time in the United States when there were similar prohibitions against mixed-race marriages. Before 1967, inter-racial couples were not allowed to marry in some U.S. states. Outrageous! Fortunately, those days are just a bad memory in our countrys past. And just as it is now, there were those who stood behind a narrow and selective interpretation of the Bible to dictate that interracial marriages were against some moral creed. There are always going to be readily available excuses to justify discrimination. The real challenge for American is to embrace diversity and acknowledge all people were created equal. Its about respect. Gay people are law-abiding, hard-working, taxpaying, educated members of society. We buy homes, newspapers, consumer goods and cars. We pray in churches, eat in restaurants, and we have families. Additionally, discriminating against a class of Americans does not send a welcoming message to potential industry looking to do business here. Or, looking for the best talent to come live and work here and buy our homes, especially our historic homes. If we are to invest in our community, we need assurances. We do not need state-sponsored discrimination. From a purely economic standpoint, this push to demonize gay people in the eyes of the American people will backfire. It will be detrimental to the long term fiscal recovery in the places we call home. Stop trying to change or alter the Constitution to legitimize bigotry in America. We Are America. And, last I checked, we can still vote.

Frank Dunn Winterville