Today, on the 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision striking down state laws banning interracial marriage in the case of Loving v. Virginia, condemnations continue to pour in from across the country for North Carolina’s absurd and offensive new marriage discrimination law. Here are just a few:
From Raleigh’s News & Observer:
“Senate leader Phil Berger, the champion of the measure, says it protects the religious freedom of public servants who have religious objections to same-sex marriage. But this is not about protecting religion. It is about respecting the law. With this vote, the majority has scoffed at it….
In its defiant rejection of that message, the General Assembly once more raises that flag of intolerance over North Carolina as it did when it approved an amendment to the state Constitution banning same-sex marriage. That flag is seen nationwide. It will be another signal of the state’s rightward turn and another reason why businesses and people will less inclined to make a new home in North Carolina. Even if Democrats reclaimed the General Assembly, it would be years before the state’s image could heal from the battering this current legislative leadership is giving it.”
From the Greensboro News & Record:
“Now the state will have to live with the consequences of a law that is not only discriminatory but, as the governor labeled it, unconstitutional. It will draw yet more legal challenges. This legislature is costing taxpayers many millions of dollars in lawyers’ fees and losing one court ruling after another. This will be one more….In the meantime, North Carolina makes itself known across the country for enacting a law that says some people can expect less service than others in state offices. It’s a shame. Having enough votes doesn’t put the legislature in the right.”
From the New Yorker magazine:
“Proposals to let magistrates withhold marriage licenses have the same problems, with the added insult that the discrimination is effectively coming from the state. If officials can decide not to implement laws they dislike, then equality under the law—for gay couples, at least —is just a slogan.”
From the Orange County, California Register:
“SB2 violates civil rights and insults human dignity. As did anti-miscegenation laws, it would violate constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection of the law. United States v. Windsor, in which the high court in 2013 struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, affirmed that ‘state laws defining or regulating marriage, of course, must respect the constitutional rights of persons.’”
The bottom line: North Carolina is once again the butt of jokes and derision around the country and the world and the Raleigh reign of error continues.
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