Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...NC voters divided on gay marriage ban
03.23.2009 1:49pm EDT
(Raleigh, North Carolina) Half of North Carolinians oppose a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage according to a poll released Monday.
The Elon University poll found that 43 percent would support the amendment, but 50 percent would reject it. With a margin of error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points the results suggest a dead heat.Last month, North Carolina Republicans renewed their call for an amendment, filing a bill to start the process to put the question before voters.
The state already has two laws limiting marriage to opposite sex couples. One says that marriage licenses can be issued only to couples comprised of a man and a woman. The other prevents the state from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in areas where they are legal.
When voters were asked directly about legalizing same-sex marriage, the Elon pollsters found that 44 percent of prospective voters would oppose any legal recognition of same-sex couples. But 49 percent would give some sort of recognition, although they were divided whether it should be civil unions or marriage.
Twenty-eight percent would support civil unions or domestic partnerships but not marriage. Twenty-one percent said gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry.
The poll was conducted between conducted March 15 and19, and involved 620 North Carolina residents.
How far the amendment will go is uncertain.
Republicans have been thwarted in similar attempts since 2004 in the Democratically controlled legislature.
In 2007, House Speaker Joe Hackney allowed a proposed amendment to go to committee. When it passed the committee Hackney refused to bring it to a vote in the House.
This time, Hackney has sent the measure to a different committee – Ways and Means, a committee that is chaired by a Hackney lieutenant and which has not met since 2001. Political observers at the Capitol saw it as a move to kill the bill before it can get started.
North Carolina is one of the fast growing states in the country, as many northern businesses move south. That growth has seen a major increase in Democrats in North Carolina.
Last December, the Carrboro city council passed a resolution supporting gay marriage and sent copies of it off to the state and federal government. The city of about 19,000, not far from Chapel Hill, is considered one of the most liberal in the South – sometimes dubbed The Paris of the Piedmont.
Let me start by saying I’m a straight, Southern Baptist raised (I no longer go to church) North Carolinian and am 100% pro gay marriage. There are many people who feel the same. Those who are against it are usually torn because they feel allowing gay marriage would be abandoning their Christian faith. But Christian ideologies are changing (thank God)- and there is a noticeable shift- now there is a willingness to question tradition.
The South really does have hospitality and charm-
So if you think when you cross the border you immediately have to pick up your Bible, Budweiser and Confederate flag. Shed your Lacoste, educated vocabulary and BMW for a wife beater, southern drawl and pick-up truck. And trade your tinted windows and nice rims for over-sized tires and a shotgun rack- well you’re mistaking NC for Bush’s home state Texas.
I can see why you would think that point, but maybe this will help you.
Most university towns are very liberal, even without the students. They are more educated populaces.
Chapel Hill – UNC
Raleigh – NCSU
Durham – Duke
Charlotte – UNC Charlotte
Wilmington – UNC Wilmington
Asheville – UNC Asheville
Greensboro – UNC Greensboro
Davidson – Davidson College
High Point – High Point University
Etc. etc. etc.
Plus, the Triangle, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, is a tech corridor and has become big time on the east coast. That group tends to be more liberal.
CHarlotte has so may gays that there is a small and growing gay district.
I am not saying it is perfect, but it is changing out of a changing people. So, I see it as completely possible.
Confederate,
I was raised to be polite, so, after you!
Sorry dont believe this poll. If this is true, then NC is socially to the left of CA. Garbage.
I would not believe this poll. In the past few months, the people who were organizing the No on Prop 8 campaign in CA allowed community activists full access to their internal polling which showed that we had little chance of winning. Most of the public polling had us either in a dead heat or slightly ahead. Therefore, I can no longer trust polling on this issue. The only poll that really counts, anyway, is the final vote.
I think it’s *amazing* progress that gay marriage is polling at 50% in NC. I’m not saying we’d win, if it goes to the voters. But those poll numbers are similar to the final vote tally in CA.
Yay!
Tiiiiiime, is on our side.
Why change the constitution if they already have all these laws?
They have made their point: Marriage is only between men and women.
I’ll take civil unions and domestic partnerships any day. It’s not as if we lose anything, the feds still won’t recognize us if we have “marriage.”
I’m considering moving to North Carolina in the future. Don’t ever move to Arkansas if you’re gay, it will eat your soul.
Forgot to tell you, Carrboro elected an openly gay mayor a few years back. And they liked him a lot.
So much so, they elected his partner a few years later.
Well, Alex, Asheville is very very very liberal. And it is a very gay friendly town. The surrounding areas are a different story.
But, and this is a big but, locals take a while to warm up to yankees. So, always say thank you, sir and ma’am and not just to leather people. Learn that barbeque is only only only pork. You grill at home. Krispy Kreme are a Carolina invention (My home town of Winston Salem) and hush puppies go with seafood and bbq.
Oh, yeah, grits aren’t supposed to be sweetend. Okra is a mainstay. And when you ask for tea it is automatically on ice and sweetened to a think syrup.
LMAO!!
So what we’re saying is that, uhm, NC voters may be less likely to impose a constitutional ban on gay marriage than what California just did with Prop 8? I’m sorry…busy wiping the saliva off my chin while I GLOAT. Very glad to know that right now, there’s not much electoral difference between Matthews NC and WeHo CA. No, it doesn’t mean Travis and Robert James are registered yet at Target in Kannapolis, but maybe that day’s not much further than the day the Cali moves past 8. Oh wait…excuse me, as a native Southerner, I was taught not to gloat–in public. So I apologize to all the Californians who now realize that your neighbors are JUST AS BIGOTED as Jimmy Joe Jimbob down at the cotton gin.
I’m hoping some day to move to Asheville, now that new and renovated condos have been growing up downtown in the last few years. But not until discrimination ends with GLBT equality. My business is now internet based, except for occassional temps. Asheville is halfway between my mother in Florida and brothers in DC and Jersey. Hope equal rights prevail.
Frankley, you are absolutely right.
The larger the gay presence in these areas, the better off we all are.
BTW if any national readers will see this, North Carolina is the best chance to break the south and get marriage equality. It is time get your heads out of chelsea, boystown and castro and get to Carrboro.
As boy of the piedmont, I am proud of the turn to the progress my home state has done. So, in true Cackalacky style:
YEEEEEHHAAAAA!