I'm not sure what prompted the change of heart - may a concern over how history will remember him/them - but David Blankenhorn (pictured at left), one of the few Proposition 8 supportive witnesses to testify in Perry Vs Schwarzenegger, and an anti-gay marriage ally have come out against the Christianist backed Amendment 1 in North Carolina. Blankenhorn announced his position to the anti-gay Amendment 1 today in an editorial in the News & Observer entitled "Amendment Goes too Far". The editorial is co-authored by Elizabeth Marquardt, the vice president for family studies at the Institute for American Values in New York City. I can just image the amount of shrieking and flying spittle enveloping Maggie Gallagher, Richard Land, Tony Perkins and similar professional anti-gay hate merchants. Here are some column highlights:
We are native Southerners and we oppose legalizing same-sex marriage. One of us (David), reared in Mississippi, has for more than two decades directed a think tank, the Institute for American Values, that aims to strengthen marriage and reduce divorce and unwed childbearing. In 2010, he served as an expert court witness in California’s widely followed “Proposition 8” marriage case. The other (Elizabeth) grew up in North Carolina and has for a decade directed the Center for Marriage and Families at the same institute. She has made her case against same sex marriage in national opinion pieces, book chapters and reports. We believe that marriage is a uniquely important institution that unites mothers and fathers to their children . . . .
But as marriage advocates, we oppose the state marriage amendment now being debated in North Carolina. We hope that when North Carolinians go to the polls on May 8 they will defeat this measure. Let us explain.
For one thing, it means that North Carolina could not, now or ever, take any step or devise any policy to extend legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples. No domestic partnership laws. No civil unions. Nothing. That’s mighty cold. If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don’t care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it’s not our view, and we doubt that it’s the view of most North Carolinians.
If you want to create a backlash against mother-father marriage – if you want to convince people that the real agenda of marriage advocates is not protecting marriage, but ignoring and ostracizing gay people – then this amendment might be to your liking. But we believe that the cause of marriage is hurt, not helped, by gratuitously linking it to the cause of never under any circumstances helping gay and lesbian couples.
In the California “Prop 8” case, David felt that he could testify on behalf of traditional man-woman marriage in good conscience, in part because California some time ago passed domestic partnership legislation to extend legal recognition to same-sex couples. He argued in favor of domestic partnerships, more commonly called civil unions . . . .
Our argument is that you should not amend your constitution in order to ban even the future consideration of this, or any other, idea for aiding gay and lesbian couples and their families. We are convinced that these two ideas – marriage as society’s most pro-child institution that seeks to bond mothers and fathers to their children, and humane recognition for same-sex couples – stand best when they stand together . . .
From now on, when we stand up for marriage, let’s make sure that it’s marriage that we’re standing up for. In 2012, perhaps we marriage advocates can begin to prove – perhaps you in North Carolina can be national leaders in proving – that supporting marriage need not carry with it the requirement of bigotry against gay and lesbian persons.
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