Amendment One Reactions

Protect All NC Families

“While we are disappointed in tonight's result, we know this concerted North Carolina effort to defeat Amendment One and protect all of the state’s families galvanized North Carolina and mobilized North Carolinians in historic ways,” said Coalition to Protect All NC Families Campaign Manager Jeremy Kennedy. “From unheard of homegrown fundraising online to unprecedented grassroots activism on the ground, Protect All NC Families was a campaign carried on the backs of countless North Carolinians who worked tirelessly to defeat a divisive constitutional rewrite that would hurt families they know and love. And our fight for fairness is not over.”

National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

North Carolina has wandered into treacherous terrain with Amendment One. For all the talk of bolstering families, this measure shamefully shoves them into harm’s way. Blocking loving couples from forming legal unions like domestic partnerships, civil unions and marriage flies in the face of family values. Indeed, Amendment One defies what it means to be a family today. Many North Carolinians, including seniors, single women and children, could be placed in peril because the shrinking definition of family excludes them. Some might even be denied life-saving services like domestic violence protections. This is a brutal step backward for relationship recognition in North Carolina.

Minnesotans United

This fall, Minnesotans will take up a similar Constitutional Amendment. We are continuing the conversations we’re having with our friends, family and neighbors about what marriage means. While North Carolina’s conversation was just a few short months, we have the benefit of time on our side and are taking that conversation to every corner of this state. The momentum to defeat this amendment continues to build, and we are as confident as ever that Minnesota will say no to limiting the freedom to marry. From now until November, we will continue this conversation throughout Minnesota; with each conversation, we are another step closer to defeating this freedom-limiting amendment.

Human Rights Campaign

“The passage of Amendment One is a heartbreaking loss for families in North Carolina, but will not stop us in the march toward full equality,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “As the country continues to move in the direction of marriage equality, our opponents have cynically interrupted the important conversations taking place which lead to increased understanding and acceptance." Support for these constitutional amendments has been dropping over the years as support for marriage equality continues to rise nationwide. In 2004 similar amendments passed on average 71 percent to 29 percent. In 2008, the margin shrank from 57 percent to 43 percent. The average for these amendments in the South has been 75 percent to 25 percent.

Campaign For Southern Equality

We are severely disappointed that Amendment One has passed. But we also now know that a growing number of North Carolinians support equality for LGBT people. Recent statements from Vice-President Biden and other officials in the Obama administration in support of marriage equality suggest that, if President Obama is reelected, we will see significant progress towards full equality for LGBT people at the federal level in a second term. For that progress to occur, LGBT people and allies must take coordinated, sustained action to resist laws that treat us as second-class citizens.

Freedom To Marry

As momentum for the freedom to marry continues to grow in the rest of the nation, today’s vote is a painful reminder of what happens when a preemptive ballot-measure is stampeded through before people have had enough time to take in real conversations about who gay families are and why marriage matters to them. This amendment is a last gasp of discrimination that will cause real harm to families, communities, and businesses in North Carolina, but says little about the prospects for a better outcome in battles to come in states where there has been greater visibility for loving and committed couples and those who get to know them. And even in North Carolina, the long-term effect of this nasty attack will be to spur more conversations and open more hearts, helping more people rise to fairness and support for the freedom to marry.

GLAAD

“North Carolinians voted to write discrimination into their constitution largely because the media didn't do its job," said GLAAD President Herndon Graddick. "North Carolina's media failed to educate its audience about the potential far-reaching consequences of this amendment, and as a result, polls show as many as 60% of voters didn't know the extent of what they were voting on." He continued, “While today’s vote is devastating to those families who will lose vital protections, we are encouraged by a steady rise in support for equality across the country.”