My colleague Barb Fedders has an op-ed in today's Raleigh News and Observer about the aftermath of Tuesday's vote on the North Carolina constitutional amendment regarding marriage. Barb responds to Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James' statement about the amendment that "The purpose is not just to prevent Massachusetts people coming down .... It’s also to put a big letter of shame on the behavior. We don’t want them here. We don’t want them marrying. If you’re going to do it in San Francisco, it’s your own business.”
Barb focuses on some of the positives that emerged from the vote, even if the result was not what many had hoped for. She says in response to James that
I’m staying because I am inspired by the people in small, rural towns who came out for the first time, who lobbied fellow parishioners, who knocked on doors in their neighborhoods. Because I am moved by the ministers who spoke out in favor of marriage equality when their congregations weren’t with them. Because the NAACP did the best, most principled work imaginable, drawing links between all forms of discrimination.
I’m staying because more than 800,000 people voted FOR us and our families.
Read the rest of it here.
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