We are native Southerners and we oppose legalizing same-sex marriage.

One of us (David), reared in Mississippi, has for more than two decades directed a think tank, the Institute for American Values, that aims to strengthen marriage and reduce divorce and unwed childbearing. In 2010, he served as an expert court witness in California’s widely followed “Proposition 8” marriage case.

The other (Elizabeth) grew up in North Carolina and has for a decade directed the Center for Marriage and Families at the same institute. She has made her case against same sex marriage in national opinion pieces, book chapters and reports. We believe that marriage is a uniquely important institution that unites mothers and fathers to their children.

But as marriage advocates, we oppose the state marriage amendment now being debated in North Carolina. We hope that when North Carolinians go to the polls on May 8 they will defeat this measure. Let us explain.

The proposed amendment states that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” That’s a big mouthful, and it goes well beyond the issue of same-sex marriage.

For one thing, it means that North Carolina could not, now or ever, take any step or devise any policy to extend legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples. No domestic partnership laws. No civil unions. Nothing.

That’s mighty cold. If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don’t care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it’s not our view, and we doubt that it’s the view of most North Carolinians.

If you want to create a backlash against mother-father marriage – if you want to convince people that the real agenda of marriage advocates is not protecting marriage, but ignoring and ostracizing gay people – then this amendment might be to your liking. But we believe that the cause of marriage is hurt, not helped, by gratuitously linking it to the cause of never under any circumstances helping gay and lesbian couples.

Labels: civil unions, David Blankenhorn, domestic partnership, Elizabeth Marquardt, gay marriage, North Carolina

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The two brides were married in a traditional ceremony at United Church of Chapel Hill last weekend.

In spite of the fact that both had her own notions about wedding details like gowns, flowers, cakes, rings, vows and honeymoons and both, like most brides to be, had girly inclinations about their dream wedding, Jenny Shultz, 31, and Shannon Thomas, 46, made it to the altar unscathed, with their relationship intact and with all that wedding stuff worked out.

Many couples opt to write their vows these days, but Jenny and Shannon found that everything they came up with was somehow already covered in traditional words like "for richer, for poorer, for better for worse."

"I wrote, like a book, all the same things already said in the traditional vows," Shultz said. "Finally, we both just laughed because we realized that the traditional vows had been working for years. They were tried and true.

"It may sound funny to say we are both brides and we are claiming tradition and making it applicable to two women instead of using different stuff, but what we're doing is seeking the sanctity of marriage for us. Shannon and Jenny, two people coming together."

Labels: Christianity, culture, gay marriage, North Carolina, religion

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People need to take greater care in getting divorced in North Carolina than they do to get married, according to the state Court of Appeals.

In a 2-1 ruling issued Tuesday, the court ruled that a marriage can be considered valid in the state even if the couple doesn't have a license and the ceremony is handled by someone other than a minister or justice of the peace. ...

The case arose from the end of Juma Mussa's 12-year marriage to Nikki Palmer-Mussa. He wanted their marriage annulled, ending his alimony payments, on the grounds of bigamy.

Before marrying Mussa in 1997, Nikki Palmer had married Khalil Braswell in Maryland under Islamic law. They had no license and were married by a construction worker who was Braswell's friend.

She said the marriage was never consummated, and she soon ended it under Islamic law by returning the dowry and declaring herself divorced.

The appeals court ruled that, even though her ceremony to Braswell "failed to meet statutory requirements," Palmer-Mussa still needed to get a judge to grant her a divorce or annul the marriage.

Because she was already married, the court voided her marriage to Mussa, which has produced three children.

Labels: common-law, divorce, Islam, Marriage, North Carolina

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A group of abortion clinics, doctors and pro-choice groups are suing to block a North Carolina law that would require a pregnant woman to have an ultrasound and receive information about her fetus before she can obtain an abortion.

It is unethical to force health professionals to deliver “state-mandated ideological speech to patients” and force patients “to allow their bodies to be treated as the source for government-mandated speech,” Dr. Gretchen S. Stuart and other plaintiffs said in the lawsuit, filed Sept. 29 in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of North Carolina.

The lawsuit is the latest filed this year against new state laws seeking to regulate abortion.

North Carolina’s “Woman’s Right to Know” law goes into effect Oct. 26. Its goal is to ensure that women are fully informed about abortion before it is performed.

A key section of the law says that at least four hours before an abortion, and before any anesthesia is given, a doctor must provide “an obstetric real-time view” of the fetus for the woman.

The doctor must give a medical description of the image, and display the screen so the woman can see it, although she is not required to look at the image. She must also be offered the opportunity to hear the fetal heart tone. ...

During the hearings, lawmakers heard from women who said they didn’t fully understand what was happening to them when they had an abortion. Danielle Hallenbeck said that when she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in 1993, no one talked about post-abortion health risks, and she wasn’t even introduced to the doctor.

The only words she heard him say during the operation were when “he said, ‘You’re further along than you thought.’ Those words haunt me to this day,” Ms. Hallenbeck testified.

Labels: abortion, North Carolina

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More than 60,000 Americans were sterilised, many against their will, as part of a eugenics movement that finished in 1979, aimed at keeping the poor and mentally ill from having children. Now, decades on, one state is considering compensation.

In 1968, Elaine Riddick was raped by a neighbour who threatened to kill her if she told what happened.

She was 13, the daughter of violent and abusive parents in the desperately poor country town of Winfall, in the US state of North Carolina.

While she was in hospital giving birth, the state violated her a second time, she says.

A social worker who had deemed her "feeble-minded" petitioned the state Eugenics Board to have her sterilised.

Labels: class, North Carolina, race, reproduction, sterilization

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...North Carolina remains one of a few states that allow someone to sue the person alleged to have interfered in a marriage — called alienation of affections. More than 200 such cases are filed statewide in an average year, according to the Rosen law firm in Raleigh.

The firm cites several high-dollar cases over the years, but none near the mark of the Shackelford-Lundquist case.

In 1997, separate juries awarded $1 million in an Alamance County case and $1.2 million in a Forsyth County case.

In 2001, a jury awarded $1.4 million to a distraught husband in Mecklenburg County. On appeal, the court reversed the decision on $910,000 of the award but left about $500,000 for the husband.

Collecting money in such awards can be difficult but is not impossible, said Will Jordan, the Greensboro attorney who represented Cynthia Shackelford.

“We may not get the full $9 million, but I’m hopeful that we’ll collect a substantial sum of money,” he said. “In addition to just collecting the judgment, there’s a certain amount of validation or vindication that goes with having a jury acknowledge that you were done wrong.”

Cynthia Shackelford said she gave up teaching to raise two children and support her husband’s career. After the marriage fell apart, she moved in with friends because she couldn’t afford an apartment.

Labels: adultery, alienation of affection, divorce, North Carolina

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A jury has awarded a North Carolina woman $9 million from her husband's lover after ruling the other woman ruined their marriage.

The News & Record of Greensboro reports the jury ruled this week in 60-year-old Cynthia Shackelford's alienation of affection case. North Carolina is one of a handful of states that allow jilted spouses to sue over affairs. ...

Shackelford's lawyer says she might not get the full $9 million, but Shackelford wanted to send a message that the sanctity of marriage should be respected.

Labels: adultery, alienation of affection, Marriage, North Carolina

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A poll commissioned by the North Carolina Family Policy Council found that almost three-quarters of registered voters would likely support an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting gay marriage.

Labels: gay marriage, marriage amendments, North Carolina

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