Screw you, North Carolina

So by now, just about everyone has heard the news … Girl Scout cookies are going to be sold in candy bar form! Oh, wait, not that news, this news: North Carolina voted for Amendment One, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman and places a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions.

Fortunately, though, North Carolinians can still get divorced, marry their first cousins and marry off pregnant children. Not even kidding. Their law states: “Minors between the ages of 14-16 may lawfully marry if the prospective wife is pregnant, or has given birth, and intends to marry the father of her child.”

Because marrying off a terrified, pregnant 14 year old totally upholds the sanctity of marriage.

Going to North Carolina is just like going to a really bad Waffle House, except instead of your hash browns, you can get your civil rights scattered, smothered, and chunked in the trash.

It scares me to my core that in this day and age, we’re still allowing the majority to vote away the civil rights of the minority. Isn’t this why we have a Bill of Rights?

The 14^th Amendment:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.*

*Unless they like the butt sex.

The last time North Carolina amended their Constitution was in 1875, when they made interracial marriage “between a white person and a negro… hereby forever prohibited.” How’s that workin’ out for you guys?  

Winston Chuchill once said “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” Let’s hope this is the last vestige of “everything else” and that this country will soon wake up to the fact that codified bigotry is just not okay.  

No on Amendment 1

North Carolinians are gearing up for a vote on Amendment 1, which would make both gay marriages and civil unions completely illegal in North Carolina. North Carolina clearly learned their lesson about segregation: ‘separate but equal’ doesn’t work, so let’s just try ‘separate and really fucking unequal’ instead!

But the really scary part (ok, all the parts are scary, but another scary part) about this is that, when questioned, Jodie Brunstetter, the wife of Sen. Peter Brunstetter who helped author the amendment, stated: “The reason my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce.”

Umm… can I keep going with the Holocaust/genocide comparisons now?

Republicans all over the country are trying to strip rights from minority groups one by one in an attempt to create a perfect Christian society. In just the past week or so, LGBT people have been under attack from every corner. That horrible idiot pastor in North Carolina advocated beating the gay out of your children, the radio DJ in Ohio told a father to have someone rape his daughter straight, and a group of pearl-clutching witch-hunters has gone after JC Penney for showing a potentially-lesbian couple on one page of a catalogue. How dare they depict lesbians as normal human beings!

And of course attacks on women and minority/low-income/recent immigrant voters are still in full swing.

Once the minorities are duly subjugated, the Good Christians of the country will be better able to restore us to Good Christian Life. Women will cover themselves head to toe for modesty’s sake and so that no men are provoked into un-Christian acts, only boy children will be sent to school (because a girl’s place is in the home, learning how to cook), everyone will have the same color skin, girls will be married off at age 14 so they can begin reproducing, and everything will be As It Should Be. And we will actually be living in Iran.

Yeah I understand you can point to some passage in a book that says ‘marriage is between a man and a woman.’ But you know what? That book has no place in my Constitution. And that book also advocates slavery, so unless you plan to give yourself to me in bondage and fetch me a damned cup of coffee, that argument is not gonna fly.

Misogyny, intolerance and bigotry seem to be the rallying cries of the Republicans lately. North Carolinians go to the polls on May 8 – If you live in NC, please vote No on Amendment 1, or if you know anyone in NC, urge them to vote against this awful bill. Equality shouldn’t be subject to the whims of a hate-based religious sect.