Remember to Vote Yes to Amendment 1 In North Carolina

Posted by Erick Erickson (Diary)
Tuesday, May 8th at 4:46AM EDT

RedState:

Today voters in North Carolina will go to the polls to consider Amendment 1, a constitutional amendment to ensure liberal judges and gay rights activists are prohibited from changing the definition of marriage under North Carolina law. Polls suggest the measure will pass. But then polls suggested the Personhood Amendment in Mississippi would also pass and it did not.

The Republican Primary is largely over in North Carolina, except in some contested seats. Republicans may not want to turn out. I do hope they turn out to vote for Scott Keadle, however, in his race. And I hope they turn out and join Latino voters and black voters as they did in California to support traditional marriage.

In 31 states that have considered constitutional amendments to uphold traditional marriage, all 31 have passed those amendments. Republicans should go to the polls in North Carolina to make sure North Carolina becomes the 32nd state to uphold traditional marriage.

The last thing we need is for Anthony Kennedy to decide that one state out of 32 is an “emerging national consensus.”

In the past decade, spurred on by the siren song of happiness and fairness and claims for equality and progress when men and women in the country already have equal rights to marry, gay rights activists have systematically sought to redefine marriage as something other than what several thousand years of human history have come to define it. They have been helped by liberal activist judges and deteriorating cultural values. In a day when we should be doing all we can to save marriage, we’re on a course to have its meaning eroded.

Over several thousand years, whether by edict from on high or through trial and error, humans settled on the two parent, heterosexual nuclear household as the most stabilizing force in society. In the past few decades, many people have decided that several thousand years of human history can be ignored in favor of unproven claims of happiness, fairness, progress, and an expanded notion of equality. The standard argument is that with divorce already at 50% in heterosexual households, it is not like gay marriage can undermine what is already being weakened. If it’s already broke, why not break it further?

In fact, I take the reverse position — just because people have already devalued marriage does not mean it should be devalued further — particularly by changing long held definitions and claiming that the equal right we all have today to marry is somehow unequal. At no time in human history until the past few decades have people thought marriage should be anything other than between a man and woman. We should not be so quick to further erode the cornerstone of stability in society and slide further down the slippery slope.

Whether you believe it was a god or just nature, we should not think ourselves so unique as to be so brazen to upend the existing order of our nature when marriage, as it exists and has existed has been tried and tested by billions of people over thousands of years.

I hope North Carolina voters will reaffirm what marriage is within their constitutional framework as a sign that 32 states are not quite ready to give in to progressive norms. Oh, and Amendment 1 passing today would make the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC even more awkward than it already will be.