UPDATE: Anti-LGBT Constitutional Amendment FAQ

What Can I do to Stop the Amendment?

• Phone Banking & Canvassing for Equality
  Help us mobilize pro-equality supporters to contact their key legislators. Volunteer TODAY!
  Live in the Triangle? Contact Jess@equalitync.org
  Live in the Triad?  Contact Chris@equalitync.org
  Live in the Western NC? Contact Lee@equalitync.org
  Live in Eastern NC? Contact Andrew@equalitync.org
  Live in the Charlotte area? Contact Sam@equalitync.org
  Want to get people of faith involved? Contact Ryan@equalitync.org

• Virtual Phone Banking
  Leading up to the September 12th special legislative session, legislators have said that they want to hear how their constituents feel about HB777/SB106, "the anti-LGBT amendment." So...we' re making it easy by setting up virtual phone banks all over the state and country to mobilize our family, neighbors, co-workers and friends to let these lawmakers know that we oppose the anti-LGBT amendment...and we vote!

• Calls for Equality

  Personally call your state senator and your state representative today and let them know you oppose the anti-LGBT amendment. Even if you've called before, call again. Remind them that you stand on the side of Equality. (You can find their phone numbers here.)

• E-mail for Equality
  Send a customized message to your local legislators, letting them know you oppose HB 777/SB 106, the anti-LGBT amendment.
  
• Help Build a State of Equality
  Make a contribution to Equality NC to fund our lobbying and community organizing to stop the anti-LGBT amendment.
• Join the Action for Equality
  Join Equality NC's online action network to get alerts on how you can help.
• Join our Postcard Campaign
  Write" the wrongs of this harmful legislation. Help us send a message to the legislature by volunteering to get people in your community to complete postcards to their legislators in opposition to the anti-gay amendment. We'll make it easy by sending you a kit with everything you need.

• Clubbing for Equality (Fridays, 10 pm-1am)
  Dance and advocate the night away at LGBT and ally nightclubs and bar. Contact Jess@equalitync.org.

• Share the Equality, Fight the Amendment
  Talk to your friends, family, and co-workers about the anti-gay amendment and why it must not pass. Tell them a story about how anti-LGBT discrimination has affected you or someone you love. Copy and post the following link on Facebook and Twitter, or email it to your friends to share this FAQ with them: http://bit.ly/eCfsTS

About the Amendment

What does the Senate's anti-LGBT amendment say?

In February 2011, a Senate bill (Senate Bill 106) was filed that would amend the state constitution to include a new section that reads "Marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State."  Click here to see the full text on the legislature's website.

What does the House's anti-LGBT amendment say?

In April 2011, a narrower House bill (House Bill 777) was introduced that would amend the state constitution to read “Marriage is the union of one man and one woman at one time. No other relationship shall be recognized as a valid marriage by the State."  Click here to see the full text on the legislature's website.

What would an anti-LGBT amendment do?

The proposed Senate language represents the most extreme version of an anti-gay amendment. In addition to limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, as state statute already does, it would prohibit any other form of relationship recognition, such as civil union or domestic partnership. This kind of language has been used in other states to take away private benefits such as health insurance for LGBT couples, unmarried opposite-sex couples, and their children. This is a not a hypothetical issue but a very real one. These amendments have also been used to challenge other private contracts between couples. The amendment would not only write the current discriminatory marriage law into the constitution, it would actually take away rights and responsibilities that are currently available to some couples.

The House version is somewhat narrower, and would prohibit recognition of marriage for same-gender couples.

Both versions effectively represent divisive, discriminatory and distracting legislation that would actively write discrimination into the state’s founding document by prohibiting some form of legal relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples.

Who sponsored the Senate's version of the anti-LGBT amendment?

Co: Tom Apodaca;  Harris Blake;  Andrew C. Brock;  Harry Brown;  Warren Daniel;  Jim Davis;  Don East;  Thom Goolsby;  Rick Gunn;  Kathy Harrington;  Ralph Hise;  Neal Hunt;  Brent Jackson;  Wesley Meredith;  E. S. (Buck) Newton;  Louis Pate;  Jean Preston;  David Rouzer;  Bob Rucho; Tommy Tucker;

(Click here to look up who your senator is if you don't know.)

Who sponsored the House's version of the anti-LGBT amendment?

Primary: Lewis;  R. Brown;  Crawford;  Hill; 

(Click here to look up who your representatives are if you don't know.)

What happens next?

Now that both the House and Senate bills are assigned to committees, it is up to committee chairs to schedule them for hearings and votes (or to not schedule them at all). Typically, the chairs will announce that a bill will be heard in committee a few days prior to the actual committee meeting. During the hearing, legislators who belong to the committee can amend the bills and then vote whether to favorably report the bill out to the entire House or Senate chamber for a vote, or not. In some cases, legislators will take comments from the general public during the hearing on a bill. If a bill is reported out favorably from a committee, it will typically be voted on by the entire chamber on the next day the legislature is in session. If the first chamber passes the bill, it would then go through the same process in the other chamber.

Currently these bills are scheduled for consideration during a special legislative session on constitutional amendments beginning September 12.  Equality North Carolina is working to keep these bills from getting out of committee in September, and to line up the votes to defeat them if they do get to the floor for a vote.

What is the process to amend the constitution?

A final bill must pass both the House and Senate by a 3/5ths margin (that's 30 of 50 votes in the Senate and 72 of 120 votes in the House). It would then be placed on the ballot in November 2012 where it would need a simple majority of voters to become part of the constitution. The governor does not have veto authority on constitutional amendments.

What do we call it?

Call SB 106/HB 777 what they are: "the anti-LGBT amendment or "the anti-gay* amendment."  It's not about "defending" anyone's marriage. It's an attack on LGBT North Carolinians.

What are our key arguments against the amendment?

1. The anti-gay amendment causes real harm. It harms couples who will be denied even the most basic protections and it harms vulnerable LGBT young people by sending a terrible message that their state and their neighbors consider them second-class citizens unworthy of basic dignity and fair treatment, a message which exacerbates the epidemic of LGBT young people committing suicide.

2. The anti-gay amendment is bad for business. It intrudes on businesses' right to provide competitive benefits to their employees and it signals to major employers that our state is not welcoming of the diverse, creative workforce that is needed to compete in the global economy.

3. The anti-gay amendment is a distraction from the voters' priorities. The legislature was sent to Raleigh to tackle jobs, the economy, and the state budget, not to advance a divisive social agenda.

4. Marriage is already denied same-sex couples by state law. The amendment doesn't change marriage in any way. It simply attacks LGBT North Carolinians and puts their basic rights up for a vote.

5. Amending the constitution is an extreme act, not a conservative one. Constitutions are designed to protect rights and not to take them away. The rights of a minority should never be put to a majority vote.

* We sometimes use "gay" in our public messaging when we mean LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) because not enough people know what LGBT means. We're starting with what's familiar to most North Carolinians so we reach as many folks as possible.