Charlotte pastor who pushed marriage amendment jumps into Senate race

Mark Harris, a Charlotte pastor, launches his bid for US Senate today.

Harris' candidacy puts him into contention with NC House Speaker Thom Tillis and Cary obstetrician Dr. Greg Brannon in the Republican primary to challenge Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan.

A Winston-Salem native, Harris served as senior pastor at Center Grove Baptist Church in Clemmons before assuming his current position as senior pastor of the 3,400-member First Baptist Church in Charlotte. Harris has held several leadership roles in the NC Baptist State Convention, and played a prominent role in promoting the marriage amendment supported by North Carolina voters last year.

Harris is touring the state by plane today to talk up his candidacy, and will be at Landmark Aviation, located at 1060 PTI Drive in Greensboro at 2 p.m.

Tillis is widely considered the frontrunner in the Republican field. Brannon has been campaigning since the beginning of the year. The Brannon campaign reported yesterday that the candidate has raised more than $275,000 since the start of the campaign. Brannon calls himself a "tea party favorite" and the "foremost grassroots candidate in the race."

ACLU challenging "Amendment One" gay marriage ban

The ACLU announced today it will challenge last year's "Amendment One," a statewide constitutional ban on gay marriage, as part of an existing lawsuit for gay rights in adoptions. We wrote about the existing lawsuit for second-parent adoption rights, which includes a family from Greensboro. Here's the press release (below):

RALEIGH – Today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation (ACLU-NCLF) announced plans to challenge North Carolina’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples by amending a federal lawsuit filed against the state last year on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children that challenges North Carolina’s ban on second parent adoptions. The announcement comes on the same day that the ACLU has filed a federal challenge to Pennsylvania’s marriage ban and the ACLU and Lambda Legal have announced a challenge to Virginia’s marriage ban.

The ACLU is asking North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to agree to allow an additional claim challenging the state’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples to be added to Fisher-Borne v. Smith, a lawsuit filed last year in Greensboro in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina that challenges the state’s ban on second parent adoption, a process by which one partner in an unmarried gay or straight couple adopts the other partner’s biological or adoptive child. If the Attorney General’s office does not agree to the addition of the new claim, the ACLU will petition the court to allow the claim to be added.

Marcie and Chantelle Fisher-Borne, one of the couples in the case, have been together for 16 years and live in Durham. Each woman carried one of their two children -- a 5-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy. They had a wedding in North Carolina 10 years ago and were legally married in Washington, D.C. in 2011, but their marriage is not recognized by North Carolina law. When their daughter was born, the couple met resistance from a hospital staff member who demanded their legal paperwork. If they were legally married in North Carolina, their family would be respected and such encounters could be avoided.

“Our children have two parents who love them dearly.  Like any parents, we want to be able to do everything we can to care for our children.  Our children deserve the security of having both Marcie and me as legally recognized parents, and marriage is the best way for us to provide that to them,” said Chantelle Fisher-Borne. “We declared our love and commitment to each other years ago, but the law in North Carolina does not recognize the life we have built together or allow us to share legal responsibility for the children we have raised together. We want to be married for many of the same reasons anyone else does – to do what’s best for our family, especially our children, and have our commitment to each other recognized by the law.” 

Marriage would help same-sex couples protect their children by ensuring that all children in the family are covered if one partner lacks health insurance, that families will stay together and children will not be torn from the only home they’ve known if something should happen to the biological or legally recognized parent, and that either parent will be allowed to make medical decisions or be able to be by their child’s bedside if one of their children is hospitalized.

“The past year has witnessed a sea change in the quest to secure the freedom to marry for all committed couples across the nation and in North Carolina,” said Chris Brook, Legal Director of the ACLU-NCLF. “From President Obama and Senator Hagan’s endorsements to the recent landmark Supreme Court decision declaring the so-called Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, support for the freedom to marry has moved forward by leaps and bounds.  Conversations are happening at dinner tables throughout our state with more and more North Carolinians agreeing that the rights and responsibilities that come with marriage should not be denied to loving and committed couples simply because they are gay or lesbian. Our announcement today is the next step in that conversation.”

The move to amend the North Carolina lawsuit comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in another ACLU case, United States v. Windsor, which found that the federal Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as between one man and one woman was unconstitutional.

“Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in Windsor, adding that creating a “second-tier” status for same-sex couples “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects … [a]nd it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in questions makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” 

Did marriage amendment opponents overstate its impact?

UPDATE: Greensboro City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan says the city has no plans to make any changes to its domestic partner benefits policy, citing the Juffrus opinion. He said the city is also interested in seeing how the NC Attorney General responds to an inquiry from the city of Charlotte about whether local governments may provide domestic partner benefits and possible lawsuits challenging the practice. He added that he is aware of no lawsuits that have been filed. 

ORIGINAL POST: I thought it would be worthwhile to examine how the marriage amendment, approved by North Carolina voters in a referendum during the primary election in May, is affecting LGBT folks in North Carolina, as well as unmarried couples, gay and straight. As reporting assignments go, it seems like a pretty obvious follow-up.

Before the election there was a lot of debate about how the constitutional amendment would affect local governments’ ability to provide domestic partner benefits, domestic violence protection orders, the business climate, and unmarried couples’ ability to deal with family matters such as custody rights and hospital visitations. Why does it matter now? Well, because now that the marriage amendment — often called “Amendment One” — is part of the state constitution, LGBT folk still have to go to work, raise families and otherwise go about their daily lives.

And what’s changed?

Not much at all, apparently.

I’m a couple months behind on one development: Diane M. Juffras, an associate professor at the UNC School of Government, authored a bulletin offering the opinion that the marriage amendment “does not take away the authority of North Carolina local government employers to offer domestic partner benefits.”  

Greensboro is among nine local governments in North Carolina that provide domestic partner benefits. 

Some discussion about the implications of Juffras’ opinion can be found at Pam’s House Blend, the Independent Weekly’s Citizen blog. 

The contrast between rhetoric deployed by opponents in the run-up to the vote and the legal reality following the passage of the amendment is starkly drawn in a series of community law workshops hosted by the Asheville-based Campaign for Southern Equality. While other groups mobilized unsuccessfully to defeat the amendment at the polls, Campaign for Southern Equality is focused on providing legal workshops so that LGBT folks can effectively exercise their rights. The group also promotes positive narratives about LGBT folks and challenges discriminatory laws through direct actions such as the “We do” campaign. 

“Amendment One changes nothing,” Meghann Burke, a lawyer in private practice who serves as the volunteer team leader for the Campaign for Southern Equality, told an Asheville audience in July. “And I’ll say it again: Amendment One changes nothing. How many of you saw ads, or read something in the paper or received literature that gave you an opposite conclusion? I did. Now, that was part of campaign messaging. In any campaign you have to exercise whatever tools are available to you and use whatever tactics you think give you the best advantage for defeating a draconian proposition.” 

Burke went on to say in the presentation, which can be viewed in the video at the top of this page,  that the amendment was about something more primal. 

“I think we all feel it in our daily lives, and we know that our legislature proposed this amendment out of animus, out of bigotry, out of discrimination, hostile feelings towards our community. And we cannot understate what that means and what that is, but as an attorney, as a legal matter, Amendment One changes nothing,” she said. “There’s already a statute on the books that says Jasmine and I are not legally married… The constitutional amendment, or Amendment One, merely repeats what is already in the statute.” 

Almost every legal alarm raised about the amendment that gained currency in the run-up to the vote was laid out in document called Potential Legal Impact of the Proposed Domestic Legal Union Amendment to the North Carolina Constitution that was released last November and whose lead author was UNC School of Law professor Maxine Eichner. 

“In addition to prohibiting same-sex marriage, the amendment… would eliminate the domestic partner insurance benefits currently offered to their employees by a number of local governments, including Chapel Hill, Durham, Greensboro and Mecklenburg and Orange counties,” the document reads. 

That notion became an article of faith among amendment opponents. 

Greensboro at-large Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan cited an opinion issued by the UNC School of Government to support her vote in support of a resolution formally opposing the amendment in February. She said at the time that the UNC School of Government had advised that if the amendment passed the city could be subject to a legal challenge that would have a significant chance of success. 

And YES! Weekly repeated the assertion in an article published six days before the vote, warning that “companies and governments will no longer be allowed to offer same-sex partner benefits like healthcare and life insurance.” 

Burke tried to put to rest any worries that domestic partner benefits would be jeopardized by the amendment in her presentation in Asheville. 

“Domestic partner benefits — that was a big one,” she said. “If you got ’em, keep ’em. They’re still good. In the year 2013 the city of Charlotte will become the tenth municipality in the state of North Carolina to offer domestic partner benefits. Alright, so even after the passage of Amendment One cities are still contemplating and providing domestic partner benefits.” 

Among the loudest alarms sounded about the amendment was that it might be interpreted by a court to invalidate domestic violence protection orders for unmarried partners. 

“Domestic violence protective orders — there was a lot of attention on that largely because the campaign chose to take the attention off of the anti-LGBT animus and focus on harms to the broader community,” Burke told the Asheville audience. “And I think we can all agree that domestic violence is something we need to eradicate and fight against.” 

The concern about domestic violence protection orders was articulated in the document lead-authored by Eichner: “Given how courts have interpreted amendments in other states, it is very possible, however, that courts would interpret the amendment to bar the state from giving any protections to unmarried couples — straight or same-sex — based on relationships. This would… invalidate domestic violence protection orders for all victims who are in unmarried relationships.” 

The sentiment was repeated by Suzanne Reynolds, a law professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem who is widely recognized as an expert on family law. Reynolds and Forsyth County Assistant District Attorney told the Winston-Salem City Council they were concerned the amendment could invalidate domestic violence protection orders for victims in unmarried relationships as part of a slate of speakers urging Winston-Salem to follow Greensboro’s lead in passing a resolution against the amendment. 

“Domestic violence protective orders are an important tool for domestic violence victims,” Burke told the Asheville audience in July. “And if you have one of those orders — still good. Still valid. Amendment One does nothing to undermine that.” 

A paper issued by the ACLU of North Carolina substantiates Burke’s assurance by describing how the issue has played out in other states. 

“Thirty states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage,” the paper states. “Only two of them — Kansas and Ohio — have seen challenges to their domestic violence laws. In both states, the highest courts to consider the issue have upheld the domestic violence protections.” 

The November 2011 document lead-authored by Eichner argues that by the same logic that courts might interpret the amendment to invalidate domestic violence protection orders, they might also rule that the state is barred “from giving committed couples protections that help them order their relationships, including the right to determine the disposition of their deceased partner’s remains; visit their partner in the hospital in the event of a medical emergency; to make emergency medical decisions for their partner if their partner is incapacitated; and to make financial decisions for their partner if their partner is incapacitated.” 

Again, Burke’s post-referendum presentation contradicted the warning issued by the legal scholars. 

“Your wills are still good,” she said. “Amendment One does not change that. Advanced directives, health-care power of attorney, durable power of attorney, living wills — still good. Titles to jointly-held property, those of you who might hold property with your partner as joint owners with rights of survivorship, still valid.” 

The Campaign for Southern Equality has also presented its workshop on the legal ramifications of the marriage amendment in Winston-Salem, Asheboro and Charlotte. A workshop is scheduled for Saturday at 4 p.m. at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Durham.

City attorney: domestic partner benefits could be unconstitutional

In a memo today to the Greensboro City Council, Interim City Attorney Jamiah Waterman said the city's current domestic partnership benefits could be illegal due to the so-called "Amendment One."

Waterman added that the city could change requirements, which would increase the number of people who were eligible and thereby increase costs. Below is the full text of the memo.

Winston-Salem council expresses opposition to marriage amendment

Opponents of the marriage amendment raise their hands to indicate their plans to vote against the marriage amendment during a rally this evening near Salem College in Winston-Salem.

On the eve of a statewide referendum on a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would make marriage between a man and woman the only domestic legal union recognized under the law, the Winston-Salem City Council has passed a resolution in opposition to the ballot initiative.

The motion by South Ward Councilwoman Molly Leight passed comfortably by a vote of 7 to 1.

“Aside from the inherent wrongness of writing discrimination into the constitution of North Carolina, we as the Winston-Salem City Council have to consider the consequences to our city, if this amendment should pass,” Leight said from the dais. “We must be cognizant of our responsibilities to the economic prospects of Winston-Salem and our attractiveness to companies seeking to locate here.”

Southwest Ward Councilman Dan Besse argued that the marriage amendment “is directly relevant to city business,” and an appropriate topic for the council to address.

“Of specific concern to Winston-Salem, the passage of Amendment One could jeopardize the ability of courts and police to issue and enforce civil restraining orders against domestic abusers who are not married to their victims,” Besse said. “The passage of Amendment One would cut off local government healthcare coverage for children and families who receive them from a parent’s unmarried partner employed by that local government. Even those domestic-partner benefits provided by private companies could be called into legal question. The passage of Amendment One would certainly make it more difficult for Winston-Salem to recruit jobs and investment from national companies who want to provide those benefits to their employees, or who just want to be competitive to talented employees who may feel reluctant to work in a city whose state says they’re not welcome."

West Ward Councilman Robert Clark cast the lone dissenting vote, but he said that as a citizen he voted against the amendment at the polls.

Clark said he could not support the resolution to put the city on record as opposing the amendment because of a tradition that the council deal only with “things pertinent to this committee.” Clark categorized the marriage amendment as a matter that indirectly affects the city, along with national healthcare reform, licensing of nuclear power plants and natural gas fracking.

Clark added that he was sharing his vote on the actual amendment as a “personal opinion.”

“I have a basic concern with amending the constitution for a what-if situation,” he said. “I think amendments to the constitution should be well thought out. You’re taking something that is written in ink and chiseling it in stone. And I think before you chisel it in stone you better be darned sure you know what you’re doing.”

When word of the vote reached an anti-amendment contingent across the street from City Hall, they let out a cheer and yelled, “No to hate.”

A couple dozen pro-amendment demonstrators picketed city hall with signs during the council vote.

“There’s a vote tomorrow, I believe,” one of them retorted to their opponents across the street.

Video of Jodie Brunstetter discussing "Caucasian" comment in reference to marriage amendment

Video from the Brunstetter marriage amendment flap recorded by Chad Nance

The Brunstetters responds via the Winston-Salem Journal.

 Previously.

Racialized remark about marriage amendment attributed to state senator's wife

UPDATE: National media pickups at Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Beast and Daily Kos. Still no word from the Brunstetters.

ORIGINAL POST: Chad Nance, a Winston-Salem freelance journalist who is currently active in electoral campaigning, says poll workers outside the early voting site at the Forsyth County Government Center in downtown Winston-Salem reported to him that the wife of NC Sen. Peter Brunstetter remarked today that her husband sponsored legislation to put the marriage amendment on the primary ballot “to protect the Caucasian race.”

Nance said he recorded a conversation with the woman, whose name is Jodie Brunstetter, on video, and that she confirmed that she used the term “Caucasian” in a discussion about the marriage amendment, but insisted that otherwise her comments had been taken out of context by other poll workers.

Nance until recently served as campaign manager for Matt Newton, a Democratic candidate for the 12th Congressional District. Nance announced on Facebook today that he was resigning from the campaign because of Nance’s reaction to his plans to publicize Jodie Brunstetter’s alleged remarks. The Newton campaign has not responded to an e-mail request for comment about the resignation. 

Nance has been working as a volunteer poll worker for the campaign of NC House candidate Ed Hanes Jr. and the campaign against the marriage amendment. He is a primary source for an unrelated story published by YES! Weekly about efforts to manipulate Democratic voters for the benefit of a favored slate of candidates. Nance said an African-American poll worker identified only as “Michael” initially told him about Jodie Brunstetter’s alleged remarks during a conversation with opponents of the marriage amendment. 

Nance paraphrased the remarks, as told to him by those who were present: “During the conversation, Ms. Brunstetter said her husband was the architect of Amendment 1, and one of the reasons he wrote it was to protect the Caucasian race. She said Caucasians or whites created this country. We wrote the Constitution. This is about protecting the Constitution. There already is a law on the books against same-sex marriage, but this protects the Constitution from activist judges.” 

Nance said he recruited a friend, who works for the Coalition to Protect All North Carolina Families, to witness his interview with Jodie Brunstetter. He said Brunstetter reluctantly acknowledged that she had used the term “Caucasian” and then repeated the statement previously attributed to her, but substituted the pronoun “we” for “Caucasian. Nance said Brunstetter insisted there was nothing racial about her remarks, but could not explain why she used the term “Caucasian.” 

A phone message left at the Brunstetter residence in Lewisville was not immediately returned. Peter Brunstetter has served in the state Senate since 2006, when he was appointed to replace the late Ham Horton. Brunstetter has no primary opponent, but will face Democrat Delmas Parker in the November general election. 

Nance provided an edited transcript from the video. I’ve left all spelling and punctuation errors intact to preserve its integrity. Nance said he is working with a local TV news outfit to disseminate the footage and plans to post it in entirety so that people will be satisfied that he has not taken Brunstetter’s words out of context or manipulated their meaning in any way. 
 
Transcript follows: 

MICHAEL: 

“I had my back to her like this. She said, 'The reason my husband my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce.” 

UNIDENTIFIED POLL WORKER: “(Mrs. Brunsetter said) … the Caucasian race is diminishing. ?The reason that's a problem is that it was white people that founded this country.” 

“She just wants a white majority so the good 'ol US of A can stay white.” 

Brunsetter: 

We are looking at the history of the United States and it is already law about what marriage is. Between a man and a woman. And we are looking at how American has been a great country. That's why people are coming here. And people who fouinded the United states wrote a Constitution and it has been what has preserved this society. And we were just talking about lots of different things which the gentleman was turning around. 

Me: 

You didn't tell that one lady that it was to preserve the Caucasian race because they were becoming a minority? 

Brunsetter: 

No. 

Me: 

She's lying? 

Brunsetter: 

No. It's just that same sex marriages are not having children. 

Me: 

Yeahm but you didn't say anything about Caucasians, white people, preserving them that's why it was written? 

Brunsetter: 

No I'm afraid they have made it a racial issue when it is not. 

Me: 

She didn't say it was a racial issue. She said that you had said that opart of the reason it had been sponsored and written was to preserve the white race. 

(a moment later) … you didn't say anything about Caucasians? 

Brunsetter: 

I probably said the word. 

Me: 

You didn't tell her anything about Caucasians? 

Silence. 

Me: 

I want you to clear it up if you could. 

Brunsetter: 

Right now I am a little confused myself because there has been confusion here today about this amendment where it is very simple. The opponents are saying things that are not true and there has been a lot of conversation back and forth. 

Right now I have some heat stroke going on. Um there has been lots of confusion. 

Me: 

Did you say anything about Caucasians? 

Brunsetter: If I did it wasn't anything race related. 

Me: 

But it is about identifying a race. No context on Caucasians? 

Brunsetter: 

There has been so much talk about this point that there is just a lot of confusion. 

Me: 

You're not going to be able to explain it? 

Brunsetter: 

Well, it's a little hard.