Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Freedom and Amendment 1

"The 2010 Census reported 222,800 unmarried couples in North Carolina, an increase of  55% in the past decade. Of these unmarried cohabitant households, 88% were opposite-sex; 12% were same-sex. Couples who cohabitate are increasingly diverse, including not only same-sex couples who cannot marry under North Carolina law, but also young, opposite-sex couples who delay marriage, middle-aged couples who decide not to marry, and older couples who have been previously married and are hesitant to remarry. All these citizens would have their rights limited by [Amendment 1]."

That's the analysis of Amendment 1 done by UNC law professor Maxine Eichner and a team of lawyers.

I'm going to be amused angry hearing our super-pious Tea Party brethren brag about how they stand for FREEDOM. No, they stand for the heavy thumb of the state bearing down on the minority, taking away rights from that minority, both gay and straight, and imposing their religion on people who don't want to be imposed on.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So I am trying to figure this one out..... and I am a boring numbers person so here we go.

We voted to amend our constitution over 1295 unmarried households... only 47 of them being 'gay'? 6 male-male and 41 female-female?

Out of 21,230 households we are going to pass a resolution to amend the constitution over 47 'gay' households.... a whopping .22%? Even the 'unmarried partners' in general are only 6% of total households.... even at the state level we are talking about .46% and 6%.... Another census lists watauga's population at 50,000 , with 30,000 in 'family' households, and 270 unmarried partners. 862 more unmarried partners in 'non-family household'.

Trying to figure out some better numbers as to why we are bothering less than 100 'gay' people and less than 2600 'unmarried partners' in our county. There are several other charts here and I am trying to figure out the best one to see why this is such a big issue when there are so few 'unmarried partnerships' anyways. This could also be a polling issue because if the census is asking if you are married, and you are not, you can't tell if folks are in a 'unmarried partnership' or 'gay'.

I thought our country had put things like this in the past but perhaps we are still having growing pains. Apologies once again to the minority.