# North Carolina passes hateful Amendment 1 **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 9, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351 "2012-05-09T02:33:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/21 "2012-05-09T03:54:23Z")
So we can all derive comfort from the fact that bigots eventually die. I can only reiterate my wish that they do so in the most miserable ways possible. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/22 "2012-05-09T03:59:45Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > So we can all derive comfort from the fact that bigots eventually die. I can only reiterate my wish that they do so in the most miserable ways possible. They will die knowing that the America they believe in is not only gone, it is no longer even believed in. Let them choke on that. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/23 "2012-05-09T04:04:19Z")
I am disgusted but not surprised. It’s not just a NC problem. Same sex marriage, to my knowledge, has never been instituted by popular vote in this country. In all of the places where they have SSM, it’s been put there by the legislature or the judiciary. We still have a long way to go but we will get there. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/24 "2012-05-09T04:15:00Z")
“Imagine no religion…” ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/25 "2012-05-09T04:16:39Z")
When this came up in Arizona, I wasn’t surprised that gay marriage was voted down, but I was surprised by the demographics. The folks who live in the sticks…who are mostly old gun-owning illegal hating rednecks voted for it. It was the folks in the cities who voted it down. One would think that Phoenix, which filled with young and educated people would have voted for it. They didn’t. It was the old rednecks who don’t care nearly as much about who is sleeping with who as long as they didn’t have to pay to school the kids who happened due to the sex. Thinks…OK, that is wrong as well. The folks in the sticks vote to increase their taxes to pay for schools, as long as the money isn’t spent to teach anchor babies english. Maybe I should just bow out of this thread. For the record, everytime its come up here, I vote yes. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/26 "2012-05-09T04:21:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hold it in 'til you reach [South of the Border!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_of_the_Border_(attraction)) Now **that’s** nasty – but wonderfully! 😃 I stopped there for gas (and pictures!) once. My mother refused to exit the vehicle for some reason. 😃 I ended up stopping at a big truck stop a little ways north so she could use the restroom. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/27 "2012-05-09T04:21:55Z")
> [@flatlined](#): > > When this came up in Arizona, I wasn’t surprised that gay marriage was voted down, but I was surprised by the demographics. The folks who live in the sticks…who are mostly old gun-owning illegal hating rednecks voted for it. It was the folks in the cities who voted it down. That’s because the snowbird retirees live in the cities, not out in the desert. It’s the age thing, just like in California. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/28 "2012-05-09T04:34:08Z")
Dear old bigoted people (note: not old people in general, old BIGOTED people). Hurry up and die, motherfuckers. No love, DianaG ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/29 "2012-05-09T04:37:14Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Same sex marriage, to my knowledge, has never been instituted by popular vote in this country. In all of the places where they have SSM, it’s been put there by the legislature or the judiciary. Well, to be fair, in states whose populations overall support marriage equality, there’s no need to bother with a voter referendum to establish that same-sex marriage is constitutional, any more than they had to have a voter referendum to establish that interracial marriage was constitutional. IANAL but AFAICT, the default interpretation of marriage rights is “single consenting adults can get married unless we specifically say they can’t”. So permitting same-sex marriage, like permitting interracial marriage, is something that’s most easily handled either by the legislature (pass a law to let gays marry or repeal a law saying they can’t) or the judiciary (if existing laws on marriage are gender-neutral enough simply to be interpreted as including same-sex marriage). I don’t have a problem with that. Voter referenda to amend state constitutions specifically to exclude gays from equal marriage rights are merely desperate attempts to circle the wagons to stave off the inexorably increasing acceptance of gays as fully equal citizens. Most of them probably wouldn’t even have been instituted if it weren’t for conservative political strategists trying to fire up the base about “family values” issues. Thirty years from now, the conservative political strategists will have abandoned “defense of marriage” as a way to galvanize social-issues conservative voters just as they’ve now abandoned _de jure_ racial segregation for that purpose. Like any other plausible con-artist salesman, they’ll have moved on to a newer hot button, leaving the voters on whom they unloaded an inconvenient and intrusive state constitutional amendment to clean up the resulting jurisprudential mess. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/30 "2012-05-09T04:37:19Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Dear old bigoted people (note: not old people in general, old BIGOTED people). > Hurry up and die, motherfuckers. > No love, > DianaG On that note, we could do without the young bigots as well. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/31 "2012-05-09T04:44:31Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > That’s because the snowbird retirees live in the cities, not out in the desert. It’s the age thing, just like in California. And Florida. No referendum of this kind has been on the ballot here yet, but I would expect Sun City Center to vote for it. But, I think if you factor out age, you’ll find the cities far more liberal than the countryside, by and large. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/32 "2012-05-09T04:47:02Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Voter referenda to amend state constitutions specifically to exclude gays from equal marriage rights are merely desperate attempts to circle the wagons to stave off the inexorably increasing acceptance of gays as fully equal citizens. Most of them probably wouldn’t even have been instituted if it weren’t for conservative political strategists trying to fire up the base about “family values” issues. That’s EXACTLY why there were so many of these state referenda in 2004, to get REPUBLICANS out to the polls for Dubya (who was starting to stink a little at that point, although he didn’t REALLY start to get unacceptably unmentionable to Republicans until a couple of years later). Courtesy of a traitor-to-his-own-kind, Bush’s campaign strategist (and odiously self-loathing gay man) Ken Mehlman. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/33 "2012-05-09T04:49:36Z")
I could probably find 1,385 distinct and different major things to disagree with Billy Graham about, but I always thought him classier than most of his evangelizing ilk. That is, admittedly, a low bar to hurdle, but… still, most would concede he’s a cut above. He has also generally avoided political issues: he doesn’t endorse candidates and he didn’t usually speak for or against ballot initiatives. That’s why this move surprised me, and makes me wonder IF in fact he did it. In addition to his relative apolitical public persona, he’s 93 with a laundry list of physical ailments. I would not be surprised if his birther/Fox News prayin’ pundit/Textbook Tired of Daddy’s Shadow dwellin’ troglodyte/racist son Franklin didn’t have more to do with this than the old man. Though if the old man did, in fact, with knowledge and clarity spend donated money in order to publicly side with the NeoNazis (not hyperbole- NeoNazis also paid for print ads in favor of Prop 1), well… fuck him. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/34 "2012-05-09T05:06:52Z")
> [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](#): > > On that note, we could do without the young bigots as well. Agreed, but the miserable shits stubbornly refuse to die of natural causes. ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/35 "2012-05-09T05:08:16Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > That’s because the snowbird retirees live in the cities, not out in the desert. It’s the age thing, just like in California. Snowbirds can’t vote in different states, only the state they claim residence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/36 "2012-05-09T05:16:10Z")
> [@flatlined](#): > > Snowbirds can’t vote in different states, only the state they claim residence. Retirees are residents of their retirement-state. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/37 "2012-05-09T05:22:05Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I could probably find 1,385 distinct and different major things to disagree with Billy Graham about, but I always thought him classier than most of his evangelizing ilk. That is, admittedly, a low bar to hurdle, but… still, most would concede he’s a cut above. He has also generally avoided political issues: he doesn’t endorse candidates and he didn’t usually speak for or against ballot initiatives. > > That’s why this move surprised me, and makes me wonder IF in fact he did it. In addition to his relative apolitical public persona, he’s 93 with a laundry list of physical ailments. I would not be surprised if his birther/Fox News prayin’ pundit/Textbook Tired of Daddy’s Shadow dwellin’ troglodyte/racist son Franklin didn’t have more to do with this than the old man. > > Though if the old man did, in fact, with knowledge and clarity spend donated money in order to publicly side with the NeoNazis (not hyperbole- NeoNazis also paid for print ads in favor of Prop 1), well… fuck him. Yeah, I thought the same thing. Though it could also be him going senile and just repeating what people tell him. And, for once, I agree with **Rand Rover**. I might not if this wasn’t only a temporary problem. But, right now, I’m okay with what they did. Though perhaps that comes from living in Arkansas, one of the first to do this sort of thing, and I’ve seen absolutely no difference in how anyone leads their lives. My uncles aren’t any less happy than they were. I actually find it slightly funny–the North Carolina accent is one of the gayest accents I’ve ever heard. Oh, and the irony of how the gay people who stick around are likely to be the ones that don’t want a permanent partner–the very people that you could actually argue hurt the institution of marriage. I say that with the hope of giving you guys a bit of gallows humor in all this. ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/38 "2012-05-09T11:26:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Retirees are residents of their retirement-state. Retirees and snow birds are two different things. Retirees actually move their permanent residence to the new location. Snow birds, as the name suggests, only travel down seasonally and probably keep their residence in their home state. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/39 "2012-05-09T11:31:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And Florida. No referendum of this kind has been on the ballot here yet, but I would expect Sun City Center to vote for it. > > But, I think if you factor out age, you’ll find the cities far more liberal than the countryside, by and large. Ummm…Amendment 2, 2008 passed with 62% which is particularly sad, since 59% would have caused it to fail (we require a super-majority of 60% for constitutional initiatives. > **[Florida Amendment 2, Definition of Marriage Initiative (2008)](https://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Florida_Marriage_Amendment,_Amendment_2_(2008))** > > Ballotpedia: The Encyclopedia of American Politics ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351/40 "2012-05-09T11:32:46Z")
I am fucking raging on this more than I thought I would. It scares me that people are so stupid as to put the rights of a minority group to a popular vote. Do you think the Voting Or Civil Rights Acts would have passed a popula vote? Hell, they probably couldn’t even pass a popular vote today. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-carolina-passes-hateful-amendment-1/621351.md?page=3)