Submitted by Willie D. Pilkington (not verified) on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 4:02pm.
I respect those people in North Carolina who are afraid that the religious institution of marriage that they thought only involved their Church and their personal traditions is being questioned. Unfortunately this is not exclusively a religious issue being voted on. What the N.C. Constitutional Amendmendment is involving is the laws of North Carolina not the Religious practices of North Carolina. When the N.C. Legislature placed the Constitutional Amendment on the ballot for all North Carolina registered voters to consider is are we in North Carolina going to define the legal definition of Marriage for all our people not the Religious definition of Marriage for our various Church groups. When we are making the decision to vote against or vote for this Constitutional Amendment over the next few days, what we will be doing is affecting the equality rights under our laws for everyone as individuals not as Religious Practices or Traditional Beliefs, for the future way beyond us. When we consider what we all believe is our strongest asset that has held the United States and North Carolina together since the founding of our Union as a Country it is the belief that everyone is Equal under the law and that each and every one of us is equal to each other. When a law is enacted, enforced or applied toward one, we want that same law to be enacted,applied and enforced toward all in the absolute same way, without exception. We do not like anyone haveing an exemption or privialge under the law above or different from anyone else. Marriage is a legal matter, not a religious matter. When religious people, political group leaders and some radical elected individuals speak to attempt to tell you that the N.C. Consitutional Amendment is perserving some societal marriage tradition or religious marriage tradition, they are misleading the public. What they are really saying is that they want to stop everyone from being treated equally under the laws of North Carolina and the United States. Marriage allows for various rights and responsibilites that are granted by government to individuals who decide to join together to form a permanent Union and join their lives together for the benefit of each other. In the historical past our government has wrongly allowed discrimination toward otherwisw legal citizens and has not allowed those certain people to obtain a Marriage license, interracial couples, same sex couples, Native Americans and the list goes on. The only reason in our history that some people were not allowed to chose a loving partner and then obtain a legal marriage, again was not because of religion, it was because of varying forms of hate or varying forms of one group not wanting another group to share in the equality under the laws of our Country and State. Fortunately most of the good law abiding legal citizens of our Country and State who in the past were not allowed a marriage license, because of the catagory that they were placed in are now able to equally marry under our laws, because the legal rules that were at various times in place stopping those marriage agreements from taking place were rightfully found to be unconstitutional and they were overturned and discarded. Now, here we all are again, facing the social and legal challenge of attempting to stop another group of loving people from joining together legally under the laws of our State and Country, by possibly changing the rules and creating a priviledge group and barring others from the ability to be equal under the law. As citizens not as church members, we are being asked to change the our N.C. Constitution to codify / allow only one portion of our citizenry to be able to exercise the freedom to choose who they wish to live their adult life with and then be allowed to marry them under the law of the land and receive the rights and priviledges and responsibilities that we all allow to be granted to people who marry. We are being asked to possibly discriminate once again toward a portion of our legal social structure, who a majority of voters do or do not want to be equal citizens. Is this what we really want, one group of people to be allowed to have a special priviledge under our laws and another to be told that they can not be treated equally or receive equal application of the law. Think for yourself, do not take us down another road of discrimination based on hate, and prejudice toward others. Lets make North Carolina a State that is truly "First In Freedom" for all it's citizens not just a few. This is about Equality for all under all laws of the Constitution of our State and Country without exception. I ask you to Vote Against the N.C. Constitutional Amendment because it is the correct legal decision to make ... make a personal decision that Equality for all matters in this State and Country the way our Constitution was written to provide for. .
Equality in the law is what is required, without exception
I respect those people in North Carolina who are afraid that the religious institution of marriage that they thought only involved their Church and their personal traditions is being questioned. Unfortunately this is not exclusively a religious issue being voted on. What the N.C. Constitutional Amendmendment is involving is the laws of North Carolina not the Religious practices of North Carolina. When the N.C. Legislature placed the Constitutional Amendment on the ballot for all North Carolina registered voters to consider is are we in North Carolina going to define the legal definition of Marriage for all our people not the Religious definition of Marriage for our various Church groups. When we are making the decision to vote against or vote for this Constitutional Amendment over the next few days, what we will be doing is affecting the equality rights under our laws for everyone as individuals not as Religious Practices or Traditional Beliefs, for the future way beyond us. When we consider what we all believe is our strongest asset that has held the United States and North Carolina together since the founding of our Union as a Country it is the belief that everyone is Equal under the law and that each and every one of us is equal to each other. When a law is enacted, enforced or applied toward one, we want that same law to be enacted,applied and enforced toward all in the absolute same way, without exception. We do not like anyone haveing an exemption or privialge under the law above or different from anyone else. Marriage is a legal matter, not a religious matter. When religious people, political group leaders and some radical elected individuals speak to attempt to tell you that the N.C. Consitutional Amendment is perserving some societal marriage tradition or religious marriage tradition, they are misleading the public. What they are really saying is that they want to stop everyone from being treated equally under the laws of North Carolina and the United States. Marriage allows for various rights and responsibilites that are granted by government to individuals who decide to join together to form a permanent Union and join their lives together for the benefit of each other. In the historical past our government has wrongly allowed discrimination toward otherwisw legal citizens and has not allowed those certain people to obtain a Marriage license, interracial couples, same sex couples, Native Americans and the list goes on. The only reason in our history that some people were not allowed to chose a loving partner and then obtain a legal marriage, again was not because of religion, it was because of varying forms of hate or varying forms of one group not wanting another group to share in the equality under the laws of our Country and State. Fortunately most of the good law abiding legal citizens of our Country and State who in the past were not allowed a marriage license, because of the catagory that they were placed in are now able to equally marry under our laws, because the legal rules that were at various times in place stopping those marriage agreements from taking place were rightfully found to be unconstitutional and they were overturned and discarded. Now, here we all are again, facing the social and legal challenge of attempting to stop another group of loving people from joining together legally under the laws of our State and Country, by possibly changing the rules and creating a priviledge group and barring others from the ability to be equal under the law. As citizens not as church members, we are being asked to change the our N.C. Constitution to codify / allow only one portion of our citizenry to be able to exercise the freedom to choose who they wish to live their adult life with and then be allowed to marry them under the law of the land and receive the rights and priviledges and responsibilities that we all allow to be granted to people who marry. We are being asked to possibly discriminate once again toward a portion of our legal social structure, who a majority of voters do or do not want to be equal citizens. Is this what we really want, one group of people to be allowed to have a special priviledge under our laws and another to be told that they can not be treated equally or receive equal application of the law. Think for yourself, do not take us down another road of discrimination based on hate, and prejudice toward others. Lets make North Carolina a State that is truly "First In Freedom" for all it's citizens not just a few. This is about Equality for all under all laws of the Constitution of our State and Country without exception. I ask you to Vote Against the N.C. Constitutional Amendment because it is the correct legal decision to make ... make a personal decision that Equality for all matters in this State and Country the way our Constitution was written to provide for. .