North Carolina lawmakers will return to
Raleigh on September 12 to begin debate on a constitutional amendment
that would ban gay marriage.
The special session on constitutional
amendments will consider whether to send three issues to the ballot
box in 2012. Among them is a proposal to define marriage as a
heterosexual union.
The legislation was introduced in the
Senate in February and in the House in April.
The Senate version explicitly bans
other unions in addition to marriage, which might include civil
unions and domestic partnerships, but the House version only covers
marriage. Gay rights activists worry that the Senate version could
outlaw domestic partner benefits currently offered by private sector
employers.
According
to gay weekly Qnotes,
opponents of the ban will rally outside the state capital on Tuesday,
September 13.
Alex Miller, interim executive director
of Equality North Carolina, the state's largest gay rights group,
told the paper that the amendment's passage was “not a foregone
conclusion.”
“There is a tremendously well-funded
and well-organized effort by groups pushing this amendment to see it
passed at all costs, so it is important for constituents to contact
their legislators, to have business owners contact representatives
and to share individual, personal stories on what kind of real-life
impact this amendment would have on people.”
“It is crucially important that
everyone understand that this fight is far from over,” Miller
added. “When the bill is brought up for a vote it will either pass
or fail by one or two votes. I can tell you that ballot campaigns
are incredibly expensive and time consuming and almost always fail.
We have better things to do for the next 14 months than fight what
will be an enormously costly battle that would ultimately be bad for
this state.”
Minnesota lawmakers have already
approved a plan to place a similar amendment on next year's ballot.
(Related: NC
House Speaker Thom Tillis says let's put gay marriage up for a vote.)