The Pitifully Few Gay Friendly North Carolina Counties



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As the this map from WRAL-TV indicates, yesterday's vote on Amendment One confirmed that most counties in North Carolina are hostile to LGBT rights including neighboring Currituck County where 68% of the vote supported anti-gay bigotry (Currituck County includes part of the Outer Banks and the towns of Duck, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, and Nags Head).  I feel sorry for those putting on OBX Pridefest next month who now face an uphill battle convincing would be attendees that the area isn't outright hostile to LGBT individuals.  The boyfriend and I attended last years OBX Pride and had a great time. 

Bob Felton at Civil Commotion shared these caustic but accurate thoughts on yesterday's anti-gay vote:

In the cities, where the universities are, and the best educated work, and the ambiance tends toward cosmopolitan, Amendment One failed decisively. But out in the boonies, where banshees still flit through the trees at night and Holy Men are known to have magical powers, the numbers were almost exactly reversed.

In my own county, just outside Raleigh, Amendment One passed by a wide margin, and the vote tallies reveal that many people went to the polls and voted on only Amendment One. They cast no vote in the gubernatorial primary, that is, or the presidential primary, or their congressional primary; they bestirred themselves to go to the polls and outlaw those scary gays — and that’s it.

I never saw an advertisement advancing a public policy argument in favor of Amendment One. The pro-Amendment campaign relied exclusively on some notion of “God’s intention,” making the vote a religious referendum. This tells us two things: First, the average Tarheel knows next to nothing about his country’s founding ideals and, second, the average Tarheel knows next to nothing about his Bible.