Inside the polling location, the atmosphere couldn't have been more different. Everyone we encountered was respectful and kind. One poll worker cooed over our youngest and tickled his feet. We didn't have to wait at all to vote, and the whole process from start to finish took fewer than five minutes.
As we walked toward the exit, we could see the crowd again through the glass doors. The anti-amendment supporters argued with the pro-amendment campaigners. I felt an intense flush of gratitude that these young guys were willing to stand out in the hot sun, unwaveringly weathering the anger of our opponents, to fight for our family's rights and the rights of many others like us.
I hoped we'd be left alone as we walked to our cars, because no amount of shouting was going to change what we'd already done. But no, we reentered the chaos as we exited the building. Again, I thanked the young men for their presence. As we passed the crowd, a woman who looked to be the same age as my mother shouted after us, "Children are already suffering! Vote for!" Her voice was shrill and angry, and she clearly meant to harm us with her words.
Unfortunately, in the moment, she succeeded. Tears pricked my eyes, but I held it together until we got to our cars. Still within view of the crowd and the malevolent woman, my partner and I carefully put our children in their car seats and then hugged before before driving off separately. As I drove away, my tears spilled out. My 3-year-old asked where we were going, and I replied that I didn't know yet. He asked me why I was sad. I told him that the woman who shouted at us hurt my feelings. He told me she wasn't very nice.
I told him he was right. I knew that the woman was wrong not only in how she spoke to us but in what she said. Our children are not suffering. One need only spend a day with us to realize that our children are thriving, happy, and well-loved. They're fortunate to not only have two adoring parents but an assortment of doting grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
(There have been) hundreds of faith leaders against (Amendment One) as well, ones who understand why faith and matters of civil law must remain separate in order to protect religious freedom. (Yesterday) there was an event in Greensboro sponsored from the NAACP featuring over 100 clergy from large congregations including Rev. Dr. William J. Barber and ministers speaking out against the amendment. The NAACP has sponsored mailers and radio spots against the amendment as well. It’s notable that the NAACP, LGBT and progressive communities have been working together in ways that will continue beyond election day.
Some statistics from the latest phone call with the Protect All NC Families team:
- The campaign to fight Amendment One resulted in 11,000 donors with 70% of the money coming from inside NC, and $2.5 million raised
- 22% of targeted GOTV population has early voted
- An incredible 507K NC residents have early voted in this primary versus 486K that early voted in 2008
- Black voter turnout is down in this primary: 16% Af-Am voted this time, versus the unprecedented turnout of 40% in 2008 when Barack Obama ran for President
- Half-a-million robocalls went out today across the state broadcasting the anti-Amendment message from Bill Clinton.
The Catholic Dioceses of North Carolina have contributed $100,000 to the effort to put a ban on gay marriage and civil unions in the state constitution. And now the Raleigh Diocese has sent a mailer titled "Why Traditional Marriage Matters" that is prompting a complaint to the N.C. State Board of Elections.
Carol Love, the former executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, a liberal-advocacy group, questions whether the group filed the proper campaign paperwork for the mailer and filed a complaint. A staffer at the elections board told her the no records reflected the political expenditure. "My complaint is that the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh does not seem to be adhering to all state, and possibly federal, election and lobby laws, including reporting requirements, and request that the Board of Elections investigate this matter," Love wrote.
"I didn't feel like I was stealing signs at the time . . . I just looked at it as picking up trash along the side of the road."
"I know it's making me look like a bad parent, but we've taught that it's not right for men to be married to men and women to be married to women, so we stopped and picked them up," Thompson said. "Had I known it would be such a political issue, I wouldn't have done it."
Pinehurst Police Chief Earl Phipps said the delinquency of a minor charge was the result of Thompson's daughter, who was not charged, removing signs at the direction of her mother.
Police have received only one other report in the past month of anti-amendment signs being removed, he said, but investigators had no witnesses.
In Thompson's case, police had the rare witness who caught someone in the act.
There is nothing political about the charges, Phipps said.
"We don't weigh any favoritism one way or another in an investigation. We look at the evidence," he said.
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| Rev. Billy Graham |
“At 93, I never thought we would have to debate the definition of marriage,” the national religious leader says. “The Bible is clear — God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. I want to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote FOR the marriage amendment on Tuesday, May 8.”
. . . as indicated in the “Statement from Family Law Professors,” which was signed by family law professors from every law school across the state, every one of us believes that the Amendment One threatens domestic violations protections for unmarried couples, whether they are same-sex or opposite-sex.
Darnell "Dynasty" Young's classmates at Tech High School cursed at him in the school hallways and taunted him with homophobic slurs.
They followed him home from his bus stop and threatened to beat him up.
One night, as he walked home from his after-school job, they threw rocks at him.
When the 17-year-old and his mother, Chelisa Grimes, told school officials, she said, teachers and administrators seemed to blame Young for being openly gay.
His behavior and the way he dressed called attention to himself, they said.
He accessorized his outfits with his mother's purses and jewelry. And he loved to dance.
His dance routine to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" won second place at Tech's talent show in December.
"They said that the problem was he was too flamboyant, with his bags and his purses and his rings," Grimes said.
Desperate to protect her son from bullies, Grimes gave him a stun gun to carry, just in case.
"I had to do something," she said. "They throw bottles and rocks at him."
Now Young faces expulsion from school.
"It has been a nightmare," Grimes said. "I'm trying to fight for my baby's education."
Young's story is one that could unfold in countless schools across America.
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| TFP street group creates questionable incidents of alleged 'pro-gay' violence. |
In this video, volunteers with the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) describe how they were violently assaulted by pro-homosexual "marriage" advocates while supporting traditional marriage on college campuses and in the public square.
According to their website,
TFP Student Action is a project of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. Founded in 1973, the American TFP was formed to resist, in the realm of ideas, the liberal, socialist and communist trends of the times and proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and private property. The American TFP was inspired by the work of the Brazilian intellectual and man of action Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.
What We Do
Networking with thousands of students and concerned parents, TFP Student Action defends traditional moral values on college campuses. Inspired by the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church, TFP volunteers are on the front lines of the culture war, working to restore the values of Christian civilization.
TFP activities are carried out by 75 full-time volunteers and have the support of 120,000 members nationwide. The director of TFP Student Action is John Ritchie.Now, here’s what else you need to know about TFP.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, “[i]n a 1986 article, The Washington Post described TFP as an “all-male, extreme right-wing group with chapters in 13 countries” (15 May 1986). The Brazil-based organization was financed mainly by wealthy South American families and supported the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (ibid.). It was banned for its paramilitary activities in Venezuela, where it was implicated in 1984 in a plot to assassinate the Pope, a charge that the group denied.”
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| Patrick Wooden |
. . I know of a case where in a hospital a homosexual male had a cellphone lodged in his anus and as they were operating on him the phone went off, the phone started ringing!
Wooden’s defense is that he was asked to go on the program and he told “an anecdote." I reminded him that he had no data or evidence to support this claim, and that this is only supporting the notion that he thinks being gay is all about sex, and that heterosexuals engage in all sorts of sexual behaviors that don’t have any impact on their civil rights. All he could say was that he has to talk about it in these terms because, by definition, “homosexuals as a group are defined by who they sleep with” and by extension, since his religious view is that homosexuality is a sin, this is what drives him to speak out.
He (Wooden) spoke dismissively onstage about other religious leaders who oppose Amendment One, and when I asked him about the NC NAACP’s Rev. Barber’s Open Letter to North Carolinians and very forceful advocacy against A1, he said that Rev. Dr. Barber is a demagogue (that’s a quote), and is not telling the truth about the harms of the amendment.
There are many, many people of faith, progressive houses of worship fighting out and proud against Amendment One in solidarity with their LGBT neighbors who will be hurt by it, should it pass. On the other side? A man reveling in shooting up an anti-amendment sign, and now this news of a pastor in Fayetteville, Sean Harris, of Berean Baptist Church, whose loving message for parents of a child who might be gay — just beat it out of him. Sickening. (Via JMG and Good As You):
"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”
You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that."
Ronnie Paris Jr. was a three-year-old boy who died after repeated abuse from his father, who feared that the boy was gay. The abuse that eventually led to the death started as early as when the boy was one year old. In May 2002, Paris was removed from his parents' home after the Florida Department of Children and Family Services found him malnourished and with a broken arm.
More than two years later, Paris was returned to his birth parents and the abuse continued. Just six weeks after he was moved back into his parents' home, Paris slipped into a coma while the parents were at a bible study. The child remained on life support for six days before the support was removed and he died.
Paris' mother, Nysheera Paris, told authorities that the boy's father, Ronnie Paris Jr. abused the boy because he was afraid that the son would grow up gay. This conversion abuse involved father-son boxing matches to toughen up the child but was nothing more than slapping and hitting Paris until he would cry and shake.
