SHAME ON THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

Appearing embittered and embarrassed by the overwhelming passage of Amendment One on May 8th, the Charlotte Observer posted a sharply worded editorial within minutes of the announcement that the amendment had passed. Abandoning any pretense of impartiality and with very little restraint, the editors of the Observer blasted the good people of North Carolina who voted 61-39% in favor of the marriage amendment.

The editorial was entitled, “Same-sex marriage amendment vote is just wrong,” and it began with this indictment: “On Tuesday, North Carolina foolishly and shamefully joined 30 states with constitutional bans on same-sex marriages.” The end of the editorial was no less biting: “The [voting] result doesn’t show love. It’s wrong and disgraceful.”

In reality, it is the Observer which has acted “foolishly and shamefully” and it is the Observer’s editorial that “doesn’t show love” and is “wrong and disgraceful.” But the Observer not only indicted its own home state; it indicted every other state that has had the opportunity to vote on a constitutional same-sex “marriage” amendment – meaning 30 additional states – for their alleged foolish, shameful, wrong, and disgraceful actions.

Are the editors of the Observer so prescient and morally superior that they can make such harsh judgments against most of the nation?

The Observer claims that the language of the amendment “casts a cloud of uncertainty over the rights and benefits of unmarried couples – both gay and straight – and over domestic violence laws, child custody and visitation rights and end-of-life arrangements.”  

Not only is this disputed by a number of prominent law professors and law enforcement officials in North Carolina, but the constitutional amendments passed in at least 12 other states contain similar wording, and yet this ominous “cloud of uncertainty” has hardly been cast over the “the rights and benefits of unmarried couples” in these states. Otherwise, there would have been hundreds if not thousands of lawsuits flooding the courts in multiple states, not to mention a steady stream of horror stories making their way to the media.

Even the Observer admits that “Legal experts are divided on the possible effects,” yet it cannot seem to fathom that people of good conscience, wanting to ensure that activist judges would not redefine marriage in North Carolina (as happened in Iowa) would vote for the Amendment, convinced that the ominous worst-case scenario would not unfold.

The editors of the Observer express their hope that “there is a challenge to this misguided amendment,” claiming that it “unwisely writes discrimination into the state constitution.” Yes, according to the Observer, “The state is on the wrong side of history on this matter,” claiming that “Most Americans are increasingly rejecting this type of prejudice against gays and lesbians.”

The Observer’s editors thus makes the utterly specious claim that everyone who understands marriage to be what it has been throughout recorded human history (until the last 11 years in a handful of locations) is somehow guilty of discrimination. The Observer claims that it is prejudiced to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman (rather than being genderless), that it is discriminatory to say that kids deserve a mom and a dad, that it is bigoted to make a distinction between heterosexual unions and homosexual unions.

As for allegedly being “on the wrong side of history,” the accusation implicitly compares gay rights with civil rights, as if gay was the new black. In reality, it is a complete canard to compare skin color to romantic attractions and sexual behavior. (I discussed this at length in A Queer Thing Happened to America.)

Skin color is innate and immutable, while there is no reputable science that demonstrates that anyone is born gay (no matter how deeply rooted a person’s sexual feelings might be), and there are countless testimonies of those who have experienced a modification, if not a radical change, in their sexual and romantic desires. And no one is advocating for “gay only” drinking fountains or for gays to sit at the back of the bus, nor have gays been carried over to America as slaves, notwithstanding the very real rejection and bullying many gay Americans have endured.

As for American opinion, other polls have indicated that a majority of Americans still oppose redefining marriage. But even if those numbers are wrong, it is only fair to ask how much Americans have been influenced by the pro-gay media bombardment, as Vice President Joe Biden recently stated, “I think ‘Will and Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far.” And we are supposed to celebrate this as a great moral advance?

The truth be told, multiplied millions of Americans are concerned about the relentless encroachment of gay activism on their freedoms of speech, conscience, and religious expression, and they are grieved over the gay activist indoctrination of their children in the school system, from kindergarten to college. (There is actually a pre-school in Charlotte where teachers cannot address the four-year-olds as “boys and girls,” since that would be making a gender distinction.)

It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote that, “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children,” and the vote for the marriage amendment was an act to decelerate the moral deterioration of our society. It was, therefore, an act of love.

History will ultimately vindicate the courageous people of North Carolina who voted for the marriage amendment, while the Observer’s editorial will contribute to a legacy of shame.