GLBT issues

NH vs. NC

CONCORD, N.H. - Gay couples in New Hampshire will able to join in civil unions starting next year under a bill Gov. John Lynch signed into law Thursday. “We in New Hampshire have had a long and proud tradition taking the lead and opposing discrimination,” Lynch said. “Today that tradition continues.”

The Dome and the Associated Press are reporting that the elation of homophobes in the House about getting their discrimination bill out of committee will be short-lived.

House Speaker Joe Hackney said he would use the power of his office to kill the proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage.

This is why we coaxed and cajoled and fought for Joe Hackney to become Speaker. A lesser man might have succumbed to the pressures of hellfire and brimstone spewing out for the mouths of family-value Theocrats.

Dear Democratic Legislators in the NC General Assembly:

I am writing you today in response to a story I read in the Charlotte Observer. Thank you for taking time to hear my concerns.

Rep. Linda Johnson, a Kannapolis Republican, plans to force a vote Tuesday on a proposal to ban same-sex marriage in the N.C. Constitution. Johnson and Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, are sponsors of the state Marriage Protection Amendment introduced earlier this year.

This sad story has been written about extensively, and you've probably already been contacted by supporters of Equality NC and others who have been mobilized by one of our state's leading progressive bloggers. As a straight, middle-class white business guy, I want to add my words of advice as well:

Don't. You. Dare.

If you've bothered to read the Constitution of the State of North Carolina, which you are sworn to uphold, you will find no section in that document that is written to restrict the rights and liberties of We the People. On the contrary, the preamble is a proud and honorable celebration of freedom. Among its 36 sections, I call your attention to these:

Section 1. The equality and rights of persons.

We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness.

It's not every day a woman minister from Carrboro gets quoted in the New York Times, but that's just where you'll find Lisa Fishbeck today:

Bishops in some foreign provinces that benefit from Episcopal money are now leading the charge to punish the Episcopal Church or even evict it from the Communion. Some have declared that they will reject money from the Episcopal Church because of its stand on homosexuality. But church officials say that their donations continue to be accepted in every province but Uganda, and that they do not intend to shut off the spigot.

“The American church is not a pariah to everybody — some people still like us,” said the Rev. Lisa Fishbeck of Carrboro, N.C., in the Diocese of North Carolina, which is setting up a program with a diocese in Botswana. “They think we’re nutty, but they still like us.”

By now you've heard the solemn words of the Theocrat currently serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” he said. “I do not believe the United States is well-served by a policy that says it is O.K. to be immoral in any way.”

The general told The Tribune that he would not want acceptance of gay behavior “to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior.”

As an ex-Navy officer who spent three years in the company of Marines at Camp Lejeune, I can tell you with certainty that General Pace would soon find himself with an Army of NONE if he aggressively prosecuted so-called immoral behavior. The Bible doesn't approve of any sex outside of marriage. Which means anybody who has ever gotten laid without the benefits of god's blessing in marriage should be discharged immediately from military service.