Un-Erasable Equality: Why NC must defeat Amendment 1

“We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Those words are part of Article I, Section I of the North Carolina Constitution. If they sound familiar, it’s because they were modeled after their predecessor on the Federal level. In September of 2011, those words came under attack, when the NC Legislature voted to write discrimination into the very document that begins with the equality and rights of all persons.
Citizens of North Carolina, meet Amendment 1.

For many years, primaries in a presidential election year went unnoticed in North Carolina. In 2008, the Democratic Presidential race came right to our backyard. Now, four years later, our state is back in the national spotlight but for a very different reason. The voters of our state will get their chance to let their voice be heard on this Amendment.

This amendment is more than just an anti same-sex marriage amendment and stands to damage more than just the LGBTQ people living in North Carolina if it is passed.

Not only does this amendment ban same-sex marriages, but it also prohibits the recognition of any sort of domestic legal union outside of the bonds of heterosexual marriage. It has the potential to impact domestic violence protection for unmarried couples, child custody and visitation, end-of-life directives, and domestic partnership benefits for public employees.

A vote for such an amendment would in reality be a vote to completely erase the words that begin our state Constitution. I remain confident that you cannot erase those words. “All persons are created equal” will prevail.

The process of stripping people of their rights is part of a history that this country should be making strides to forget, not relive. In state after state across this country, the rights of a minority have been left up to a vote by the majority. We must not take this step. We must not make the journey down this road again.

The true sadness in all of this is that despite all of the facts listed previously; this Amendment will still be painted by those who will vote for it as an anti-gay marriage amendment. This is a hopeless scare tactic to shore up the vote from the religious right demographic.

Like skilled magicians, supporters of this amendment will seek to take the focus off of the real issue at hand with, and instead seek to paint homosexuals as boogie men that threaten traditional marriage.

The vote on May 8th isn’t about gay and straight, it’s about discrimination and equality, love and hate, hope and despair. The time for North Carolina voters is now. We must stand together and defeat discrimination. It is, and always has been; wrong to enshrine the denial of basic human rights into state law.

Equality is always right, love will always win and hope will never be silent.

Innocent Screams: Trayvon Martin and the need for social justice

The youngest witness to Trayvon Martin’s heinous murder was 13 year old Austin McLendon. He was standing just 20 yards away. Asked about that night, McLendon said he can’t shake the memory of screams and gunfire from his mind.

Austin McLendon should have never had to hear those screams. Now, they rattle around in his daydreams. They keep him up at night and take the place of his concentration on more important things. Those screams raise questions in the young mind of Austin McLendon: what If that had been him instead of Trayvon Martin that night?

The screams, the questions and the outrage should not be confined to the mind of Austin McLendon. They should not be hid under the proverbial bushel in Sanford, Florida. The true facts in this case must come to light. Tough questions have to be asked and answered. Austin McLendon should not be the only one forced to wrestle with the screams of Trayvon Martin.

The facts on the surface are suspect and raise many questions. Why George Zimmerman, a 250 pound man with a 9mm handgun, saw it as “self-defense” to shoot a 17 year old black male weighing it at a scrawny 140 pounds, armed with a bag of candy and an iced tea?

George Zimmerman is a free man. Trayvon Martin is dead.

Trayvon Martin is dead because he was guilty of being black.

Transcripts of the 911 confirm that Zimmerman described Martin as “being on drugs” and “suspicious”. Neither of which appear to be true, but even if they were do not warrant a death sentence.

The Trayvon Martin case signals that it’s time for the United States as a nation to have a serious conversation on racial profiling and on Florida’s lenient and discriminatory “Stand your ground” law.

Why you won’t find Nancy Grace or Greta Van Susteren leading their shows with the story is simple. The reasons why the Sanford police have released George Zimmerman and corrected witnesses to help corroborate his story are simple. They aren’t comfortable having such a conversation.

This is a case that should go straight to Attorney General Eric Holder. The Sanford police do not have the right to be the judge and jury. George Zimmerman should be charged with a hate crime and tried before a jury of his peers. The Florida law that essentially gives its citizens the right to commit murder should be re-written.

Dr. Martin Luther King did not sit in a Birmingham jail cell so that people like George Zimmerman could walk away from a murder of an innocent young man without being charged. Harriett Tubman did not embark on more than 13 missions to secretly lead slaves to freedom, and Rosa Parks did not keep her seat on a bus so that racial profiling and stereotyping could be allowed to happen without consequence. These are pioneers of racial equality and equal rights and the actions that are associated with this story spits in the face of the trails they blazed and the principles they fought for.

It’s time for a conversation. It is time for a conversation about why someone like George Zimmerman was allowed to have a concealed weapon; why he was able to use it to commit such an injustice? It is time for a conversation about race and why Trayvon Martin is really dead.

Trayvon Martin should be alive; Austin McClendon should be free from the screams he hears at night when we pillows his head and no person should fear for their life because of the color of their skin.

The life of Trayvon Martin should not have been lived and lost in vain. We must make sure that Trayvon did not die to send this country back to the 1960’s. May his death be the beginning, albeit a sad one, of an honest, open dialogue promoting a better understanding of race, violence and equal treatment under the law.