Thanks, Bill D. Excellent point.

North Carolina had already passed a law prohibiting gay marriage. Laws can be challenged in court. Constitutional amendments have to be repealed by the voters. The constitutional prohibition against civil unions and domestic partnerships that is included in the amendment applies equally to heterosexual couples.

31 states now have constitutional amendments banning same sex unions, although there is considerable variation in the extent of the ban.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banning_same-sex_unions_by_type

There was significant variation in the vote in North Carolina by regional demographics. Rural vs. urban, areas with large numbers of professionals, higher incomes, and higher education tended to vote against the amendment in large numbers. Some of those people are Christian and also evangelical. However, the pastors of most of the churches they attend probably did not speak out and enjoin their congregations to vote against the amendment as did many conservative pastors. I haven't been attending my own, generally liberal Episcopal church regularly for awhile, but am pretty sure if I had, I would not have heard my Rector address the issue from the pulpit. My church leadership has been remarkably silent, publicly, in articulating a position on the controversy and chism within the Episcopal church regarding our gay bishop, other than to make clear his support for staying within the American Episcopal union.

I can not but help think of the central role leaders in African American churches played in the American civil rights movement, and to a certain extent continue to play. Conservative pastors today took a page from that book of lessons and wield it very effectively.

This is a civil rights issue in every way. Generally speaking, neither the liberal churches nor the African-American churches that continue to advocate for civil rights for African-Americans have had the courage to take a stand on this issue, or fail to recognize it as a civil rights issue.



It is a difficult task for a society to balance the benefits of acceptance and diversity with the benefits of cohesiveness.