North Carolina Historical Marriage Act
I guess North Carolina doesn't have any more problems that are important and require urgent attention. That would mean that the legislator has:
Ended the human trafficking issues that have so often been in the news in Charlotte
Stopped crime in all 100 counties in North Carolina
Cleaned up the Coal Ash spill
Ended unemployment and under-employment in North Carolina
Ended poverty in North Carolina
Ended hunger in North Carolina
Ended homelessness in North Carolina
Healed mental illness in North Carolina
Stopped the epidemic of chronic illnesses in North Carolina
Ended racially based divisions in North Carolina
Introduced a program to end Physician and Nurse burnout in North Carolina
Lowered taxes on all citizens by running an efficient government
Ensured every child receives an education that prepares the child for a good life
Found every missing child
Implemented Social and Emotional Learning Programs in every school
Note: The order of the above represents a stream of consciousness when they popped into my mind. It is not intended to be in priority order.
North Carolina has a lot of problems. What consenting adults do when they are alone isn't one of them.
I'm as straight as the day is long and my view on gay marriage has evolved over the years. When being gay was usually hidden in order to protect one's career there was a lot more wrong doing than there is now that gay marriage is (currently) legal in North Carolina.
How many people do you know who married partners who turned out to be in the closet leading to dashed dreams, miserable marriages that eventually led to divorce, and children raised with parents who don't get along?
That happened often when gay people had to hide or be ostracized.
I doubt if it happens often today, especially not without honesty about one's preferences.
I have a friend who was miserably married for decades and realized the reason she was miserable when she was 60 years old and realized she is gay. No one lives in a bubble. If we are miserable we affect the people around us (children, partner, co-workers).
I have a male friend who was left feeling horribly inadequate following his divorce, a sense of failure that he didn't recover from until his x-wife came out as a lesbian nearly a decade after their divorce.
I have a childhood friend whose father drank himself to death in a similar situation and died before his wife came out of the closet.
I have a female friend whose hopes of a life-long marriage were dashed when her husband didn't want sex after their wedding night and only consented when he'd drank a 12-pack. She eventually figured it out and left him.
I could go on. I am not casting LGBT as villains in the above scenarios. They were only doing what they thought they had to do at the time. They were following the dictates of a society that cared more about following the rules than about honesty, or the well-being of ALL its members. That society only protected people who conform even though non-conformists aren't harming anyone.
Let's look at marriage and the definition of marriage.
If marriage is between one man and one woman for life, we should:
Require men to live with their parents until they marry (wording in the bill is "a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.")
Make infidelity a criminal offense for men and women
Outlaw open marriages (marriages where the agreement between the couple is to allow other sexual partners. This is practiced by heterosexual couples in North Carolina and elsewhere.)
If your religious view is that marriage is between a man and a woman then marry someone of the opposite sex when you marry. Legal gay marriage does not mandate that you marry someone of the same gender as you. It does not interfere with the practice of your religion.
No one has ever achieved sustainable happiness by attempting to control the behavior of others.
If North Carolina passes this ridiculous bill it will harm citizens they should be protecting. I don't believe it will pass. My irritation is more about the fact that they could be using the time that will be wasted on this achieving some worthwhile goal and the fact that they will make North Carolinians like some of my friends who are upstanding citizens feel awful--something that can make their health (physical and mental) worse. Our government has a duty to protect and this protects no one and harms some citizens. It will also worsen poverty and unemployment. We've already seen the financial backlash from HB2 and now they want to make it worse.
I don't consider myself a Republican or a Democrat because neither party fully represents me or my views on all subjects. I do vote and I will vote against anyone who votes for this bill.
Please sign below (in the comments) if you agree North Carolina legislators should spend their time wisely addressing real problems North Carolinians are facing.
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