North Carolina confronts an historic milestone on
May 8 with the proposed change to our state constitution: historic, because we
have typically amended our constitution to expand and protect, not take away
rights. Except when it comes to marriage, and thus the milestone: from 1865
until 1967, Article XIV, Section 8 of our state constitution “forever”
prohibited “[a]ll marriages between a white person and a Negro.” It took the
courageous love between Richard and Mildred Loving and a United States Supreme
Court decision in 1967 to invalidate that law. In Loving v.
Virginia, the Court noted that “[t]here is patently no legitimate overriding
purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this
classification,” and ruled such statutes in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Court’s core holding bears
repeating as North Carolina voters head to the polls on May 8:
Marriage is “one of the basic civil rights of
man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival....To deny this
fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications
embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the
principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to
deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.
If it passes on May 8, Amendment One, or “the
Marriage Amendment,” will invalidate all domestic legal unions except those
between a man and a woman who are married to one another. Whether those who
drafted the proposed amendment’s language were motivated by hate, fear,
religious fervor, or all three is irrelevant: the ramifications are disastrous
for untold numbers of people in our state. Indeed, the only certainty about
Amendment One is that, if its drafters DID understand the ramifications of its
clumsy, needless language, then their principal motivation must be hatred and
ill-will toward humanity.
People will lose their health insurance and
prescription drug coverage, child custody and visitation rights will be
threatened, and victims of domestic violence will lose legal protection, to
name just a few of the amendment’s life-wrecking effects. Those who intend to
vote FOR this amendment because of their disdain for gay marriage should first
consider that North Carolina General Statute § 51-1.2 already upholds their
particular view of the world with concise language: “Marriages between persons
of the same gender are not valid.” This statute doesn’t go so far as North
Carolina’s constitution and the laws of Virginia and fourteen other states did
before 1967, to make intermarriage between forbidden groups a crime. But the
effects of the proposed constitutional amendment will be tantamount to criminal
punishment for many in our state—punishments consisting of untreated illness,
no legal protection from violence, no right to be by your loved one in the
hospital. These are the random, sordid effects of the so-called “Marriage
Amendment,” and as the Loving Court said, there is “no legitimate overriding
purpose” independent of invidious discrimination to justify it.
Those who vote for this Amendment after learning
that its passage does so much more damage to children and families than simply
defining who can be married deserve to be accused of being motivated by hatred
and ill-will towards humanity. On the other hand, those who don’t vote against
it on May 8 play a vital role in writing hatred and invidious discrimination
back into our constitution.
This post was authored jointly by the UNC Center for Civil Rights Managing Attorney Mark Dorosin and Senior Attorney Elizabeth Haddix.
Posted by Mark Dorosin on Sat. May 5, 2012 8:04 PM
Categories: Gender