North Carolina's Amendment One is All About Religion

Frankly, I am so over the Christianists' - and that term now has includes the Catholic bishops - efforts to destroy the separation of church and state and inject their fear and hate based version of Christianity on everyone that it has come to the point when I hear the term "Christian" my first reaction is negative.  Very negative.  It can be anything from an ad for "Christian Singles" to religion columns in the local paper.  My first reaction is to simply want to vomit.  Yes, this reaction is unfair to the "good Christians" who exist, but by the same token most of them act like the "good Germans" who sat by and watched Hitler rise to power in the early 1930's.  Fortunately, some Christian leaders have belatedly awakened in North Carolina and have begun to oppose the Christianist inspired Amendment One.  But more needs to be done - and quickly - to expose Amendment One as a power grab by those who despise freedom of religion for other citizens.  The true question is whether it will turn out to be too little too late.  My blogger friend, Pam Spaulding has a post that zeros in on the religious based bigotry that is the sole and central basis for Amendment One.  Here are excerpts:

When you don’t have any other card to play when it comes to discriminating against LGBTs, out comes the Bible. Without fail; it’s been clear from Day One that the people at Vote for Marriage NC could not find a way to make the case to add a measure to the state constitution to “protect marriage” without conflating church and state and preying upon fears and ignorance of voters. Its latest volley – recruiting Franklin Graham, the anti-gay preacher son of Billy Graham for its radio ad, released Friday (N&O):

Franklin Graham asks listeners to “take a stand on God’s definition of marriage” between a man and a woman and vote for the amendment on the May 8 primary ballot. Anne Graham Lotz – Franklin Graham’s sister – also has said she supports the amendment.

The ballot initiative is a complete legal over-reach — the original intent by its proponents was to ensure gay and lesbian couples would never have access to ANY legal recognition such as civil unions or domestic partnerships in addition to marriage — and Vote for Marriage NC has run into a lot of trouble here because of it:

• The collateral harms that the amendment could cause to all unmarried couples — rollback of existing domestic partnerships, effect on domestic violence laws and health benefits for children, have the organization completely on the defense.

• An epic level of public condemnation of Amendment One from conservative judges, elected officials and organizations, has rendered V4MNC silent, since it cannot trot any public officials out on camera to support its position. Its most embarrassing moment to date has to be that an original sponsor of the Amendment, Rep. Jim Crawford, announced in a public forum that he plans to vote against it because “it goes too far.”

• There are direct challenges to the notion that this is a religious or moral battle against “godless, evil secularism.” There’s no other way to read V4MNC’s ads, which prominently feature the National Organization for Marriage’s racial wedge strategy — showing black families and clergy to purportedly represent all Christians should be for the Amendment.

The last point is particularly damning because of the hundreds of clergy of all colors and denominations — including Baptists, usually seen as conservative — have publicly come forward to condemn Amendment One. Just this week, a group of 15 interfaith African American Clergy in Greensboro took out a full page ad in the Carolina Peacemaker, a well-known black newspaper in Guilford County. In the Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem region alone, 100 black clergy have come out against the amendment.

Using religious advocacy as the main justification for voting for Amendment One exposes the fact that these people want everyone to live under their religious worldview to the exclusion of all others. That is a theocracy, and the lengthy list of people of faith who are against Amendment One are well aware of the use of biblical justification for all sorts of discriminatory human behavior in the past, thus their opposition and willingness to be very public about it. The amendment is a danger to religious freedom. 

Pam has more on developments and is a treasure trove in terms of spotlighting the religious based hate that the Christianist proponents of Amendment One are aiming at LGBT citizens in North Carolina.  For the Christianists, Christianity has truly become a religion of hate pure and simple.