No matter that North Carolina's ban on gay marriages is working just fine - at least from the perspective of those who oppose gay marriage. No such marriages are recognized here.
And no matter that the General Assembly this year, as perhaps never before, faces fiscal issues that demand legislators' full attention and then some.
No matter. The move to enshrine a gay marriage ban in the state constitution, not just in state law, is getting another go-round. This time, unlike in past years, bills authorizing a public vote are likely to get to the floor in the now-Republican dominated legislature. The measures may well pass by the required three-fifths majority in both houses, which would put an amendment banning gay marriages - and civil unions and domestic partnerships - on the general election ballot in 2012, a presidential election year.
There's political calculation in the timing, no doubt. Republican leaders envision a higher-than-normal turnout of GOP-leaning social conservatives come November of next year, helping their candidates and thwarting Democrats' efforts to build on their narrow presidential-election win here in 2008.
But the amendment's principal sponsor, state Sen. James Forrester, a Gaston County Republican, can't rightly be accused of picking his spots. Forrester has tried to get such a ban passed for years. He's explained, in the past, that he's "not a homophobe." It's just that "The Lord intended for a family to have one man and one woman."
However, not content merely to see one reading of the Bible locked into the state constitution, other backers of Forrester's amendment range freely into outright bigotry.
For example, Bill James, a Mecklenburg County commissioner, told The N&O's Lynn Bonner that the amendment would place on homosexuals "a big letter of shame on the behavior. We don't want them here. We don't want them marrying." The amendment would pass with public support to spare, James said, because voters know the difference "between perversity and diversity."
What, exactly, are citizens to make of that? Sentiments such as James' should make any fair-minded legislator pause before signing on - particularly those who say they want government out of people's lives.
We have, after all, considerable experience now in this country with civil unions and gay marriage, and it's trite but true to say that the sky has not come crashing down. In fact, there's a growing recognition, certainly among younger Americans but also more generally, that homosexuals are, above all, people - friends, co-workers, relatives. And that gay couples' desire to marry - to place their relationships within one of society's established parameters - is a good thing. In fact, those who complain loudest about "the gay lifestyle" (Forrester has done so) might logically welcome gays' interest in coming under the marriage tent, with all its commitments to stability.
Sadly, that's not how they see it. Yet deep down they must realize that the move to cement opposition to gay marriage into the constitution is an effort to buy time. Americans' views are changing, and they're changing in the direction of tolerance. At any rate, the ultimate decision will likely be made at the federal level, perhaps by the Supreme Court. Having avoided blighting our state's fundamental document with a discriminatory amendment for so long, North Carolina should not enact one now.
