On Tuesday, May 8th, North Carolina residents went to the polls to vote on Amendment 1, the anti-gay constitutional amendment that would ban any legal union other than marriage and strictly forbids same-sex couples marriage rights. The majority of the state’s residents, over 60%, voted in favor of Amendment 1.
Of North Carolina’s 100 counties, only seven voted against Amendment 1: Buncombe, Watauga, Mecklenburg, Chatham, Orange, Durham, and Wake county. 1.2 million North Carolinians voted for the constitutional amendment and just over 800,000 voted against it.
The vote came just after news broke that the amendment’s primary sponsor, Peter Brunstetter, wrote Amendment 1 to protect Caucasians because they are ‘diminishing.’
The last time North Carolina amended its constitution in regards to marriage was in 1875 to ban interracial marriage: “All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a person of negro descent to the third generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited.”
President Obama and Vice President Biden both opposed the amendment for different reasons. President Obama called the measure “divisive and discriminatory.” Biden simply supports marriage equality, unlike the president.
As North Carolina bans gay marriage, two other states may see marriage equality put up for a vote: Maryland and Washington state. Both states have passed legislation that could lead to same-sex couples receiving the same rights as heterosexual couples at the state level when the laws go into effect unless enough signatures are gathered to place the laws up for a vote.
Andrew is a full-time college student studying English Literature & the Law. You can follow him on Twitter, below.
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Just to clarify, gay marriage was already “banned” (against the law) here in NC before the amendment passed. That didn’t change. Now it’s simply banned more permanently. I am happy to say I was one of the Orange County residents who voted against the amendment, but I am appalled and embarrassed by the rest of my state.
Yes, I was aware of that but I should have included that in the article!
I’d like to thank you for voting against it, though! I knew it would pass but I didn’t think that it would be by so much.
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