This is huge.
David Blankenhorn, Proposition 8 proponents key witness and director of the Institute for American Values, and Elizabeth Marquardt, the director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the same organiation, have come out against North Carolina's Amendment One, which would constitutionally ban same-sex marriage and other same-sex unions in the state.
They still oppose legalizing same-sex marriage, but…
They write, in the News Observer:
The proposed amendment states that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” That's a big mouthful, and it goes well beyond the issue of same-sex marriage.
For one thing, it means that North Carolina could not, now or ever, take any step or devise any policy to extend legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples. No domestic partnership laws. No civil unions. Nothing.
That's mighty cold. If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don't care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it's not our view, and we doubt that it's the view of most North Carolinians.
If you want to create a backlash against mother-father marriage – if you want to convince people that the real agenda of marriage advocates is not protecting marriage, but ignoring and ostracizing gay people – then this amendment might be to your liking. But we believe that the cause of marriage is hurt, not helped, by gratuitously linking it to the cause of never under any circumstances helping gay and lesbian couples.
More from the shocking editorial:
Do we suggest that North Carolina must rush out and pass civil unions? That's not our argument. Our argument is that you should not amend your constitution in order to ban even the future consideration of this, or any other, idea for aiding gay and lesbian couples and their families.
We are convinced that these two ideas – marriage as society's most pro-child institution that seeks to bond mothers and fathers to their children, and humane recognition for same-sex couples – stand best when they stand together. If you wonder why the push for gay marriage is so rapidly gaining ground across our nation, especially among young people, we don't think you need to look much further than this tragic social dynamic, in which support for mother-father marriage appears to many to have merged with either overt antagonism or cold indifference regarding the actual lives and needs of gay and lesbian couples and their children.
Read the whole piece:
Amendment goes too far [news observer]
