A TALE OF TWO PASTORS

Three cheers for the OTHER pastor in North Carolina...after hearing the hateful remarks by Ron Baity about punching your kids if they tell you they're gay...last night I heard from Dr William Barber who is preaching a very different message. In his defense of the constitution, he stressed the crucial point that when the majority votes on the rights of a minority it sets a very dangerous precedent.

Voters in North Carolina will be voting on Amendment 1, which would ban marriage equality in that state for gay people as well as for any other kind of domestic partnership. Rev.Barber urged people to always be against division and hatred and discrimination being written into the constitution. "The question that should have been raised, is "Do you want to go against Constitutional history?" And that is, since the passage of 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments, we've always expanded rights. We've never decreased rights. We know better.

The only time we limited was in 1875. That was the last time we tried this marriage thing … 1875, in North Carolina, when we amended the Constitution to disallow interracial marriage." That's how the Rev put it. The North Carolina legislature never allowed any public comment, and the vast majority of lawyers in the state have rejected this as "bad law".
God forbid that the majority could vote on some of our hardest fought battles for civil rights in this country...especially in the South. Racism is rampant all over this country...and some of our history is indeed ugly. Homophobia is still as rampant as well. These opportunities for any minority to be injured lie in wait every time these amendments raise their miserable heads.
As the battles rage on, and the politicians weigh in about equal marriage, with so many supporting "civil unions" but not marriage, I have two thoughts.
1. If Marriage is strictly something that the churches are left to decide...why do people have to go to the courthouse to get a "license"?
2. Giving gay people the option for a "civil union" instead of a marriage seems kinda like telling Rosa Parks that she could sit in the middle of the bus.