North Carolina's Marriage Amendment: I Vote YES! Protect NC's Legal Marriages! One Man & One Woman!

On May 8 North Carolina residents will Vote "Yes" or "No" to a Ballot Initiative on Legalizing Gay Marriage in that State.
How will I Vote on this issue?

YES! I Support North Carolina's Marriage Amendment!

I will Vote NOT to Legalize Gay Marriage in N.C. because I believe what God says about Marriage:
One Man; One Woman standing before a Licensed Minister or Justice-of-the-Peace, saying "I Do".

NOT Couples who are Shacking Up!

Adam & Eve; Male & Female

NOT Adam and Adam or Eve and Eve!

Thus I will Vote to Protect Marriage as being Legally Defined between One Man & One Woman.

Why?

Because I am tired of NAACP Leaders & Democrat Politicians Diminishing the REAL Civil Rights Movement by mixing this very important issue with Gay rights.

Before there was any talk EVER about Gay Rights, BLACK People were Fighting for Equal Justice & Civil Rights because we were being Discriminated against due to Our Natural Born Ethnicity NOT Our Chosen Sexual Orientation!

By mixing Gay Rights with Civil Rights it appears that 21st Century Politicians, including Democrats, is telling the American BLACK Community We are NOT Worthy of Equal Justice as Human Beings unless we accept Gay Rights as part of the BLACK Experience.

So while I do Love Gay People and see them through the eyes of God (My Niece is a Lesbian), I refuse to accept this Theory that Gay Rights is the Same as Civil Rights because it isn't!

Furthermore Mixing Gay Rights with Civil Rights is NOT being Forced on any other Ethnic Group.
NOT Whites!
NOT Latinos!
NOT Asians!
NOT Native American Indians!
ONLY BLACKS!

Why is it that ONLY BLACK people are being Forced to accept Gay Rights as Civil Rights?

Does this mean that BLACK People can’t have BLACK Pride unless we accept Gay Rights as Civil Rights?

Does this mean the American BLACK Community is just "too Stupid" or too Antiquated to understand the Difference between Gay Rights & Civil Rights?

I think NOT!!!

I've seen quite a Few Poor, BLACK People riled up about Gay Marriage. Especially when Gay people are demanding Federal Protection from Employment Discrimination while BLACK Unemployment remains at 16% to 55% depending upon the Demographics.

Thus I will Vote NOT to Legalize Gay Marriage in N.C. because I believe what God says about Marriage: One Man; One Woman standing before a Licensed Minister or Justice-of-the-Peace, saying "I Do".

NOT Couples who are Shacking Up!

Adam & Eve; Male & Female

NOT Adam and Adam or Eve and Eve!

I will Vote to Protect Marriage as being Legally Defined between One Man & One Woman.

This is My Personal Opinion.
You don't have to agree.









WRAL News poll: Marriage amendment poised for passage



A proposed amendment to the North Carolina constitution to define marriage in the state appears likely to pass, according to a new WRAL News poll.

SurveyUSA polled 1,127 likely voters between last Thursday and Monday and found that {{a href=document-1"}}sizable numbers still favor some type of legal recognition for same-sex couples{{/a}}.

The amendment calls for the state to not recognize any domestic arrangements other than marriage between a man and a woman. Fifty-seven percent of those polled support the proposal, while 37 percent oppose it.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Most demographic groups favor the amendment, including men and women, young and old, black and white, poor and affluent. The only groups where opposition to the amendment leads are Democrats, independents and people who identify themselves as liberal.

When people were asked if same-sex couples should have any sort of legal recognition, however, the majority favored some recognition, such as domestic partner benefits or civil unions. Only 39 percent of respondents said they oppose all legal recognition, according to the poll.

Meanwhile, both sides of the issue continued to lobby for support Tuesday, focusing on claims that passage of the referendum would weaken domestic violence protections.

With a week until the state primary, amendment backers called those claims "misinformation" and "scare tactics."

"This amendment will have no impact on domestic violence prosecutions, and the citizens of this state should not be deceived into thinking otherwise," said Phil Berger Jr., Rockingham County's District Attorney and the son of Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger.

"What (amendment opponents are) doing is they're using scare tactics and a parade of horribles in an effort to get voters to decide something or to make a decision on something other than the facts," the younger Berger said.

He appeared with a handful of other current and former court officials at a news conference organized by House Majority Leader Paul Stam's office. Several of the officials said there was "no chance" that domestic violence protections would be eroded by the amendment.

The Coalition to Protect All NC Families has aired two television ads in recent weeks that unmarried couples of all genders stood to lose domestic violence protections if the marriage amendment passes. The group has cited legal commentary from law professors across the state as well as Amily McCool, a Wake County prosecutor who specializes in domestic violence cases.

McCool, who is featured in one of the ads, said Tuesday that the amendment is worded ambiguously by proposing that marriage between a man and a woman would be "the only domestic legal union" recognized in the state.

"That phrase, domestic legal union, it has never been defined in North Carolina statutes. It has never been defined by North Carolina courts," she said.

State domestic violence laws apply to "a spouse or former spouse or a person with whom the defendant lives or has lived as if married," McCool said, adding that unmarried people could argue that the amendment bans the state from recognizing any abuse charges they face as domestic violence.

"Those statutes that give additional protection to unmarried couples could be argued to be unconstitutional and found unconstitutional, leaving those victims without that protection," she said.

That happened in Ohio, she said, noting that it took three years before the Ohio Supreme Court clarified the issue.

Jeff Hunt, the district attorney for Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties in western North Carolina, said the confusion over the issue points out the need for the amendment.

"The very fact that somebody can do the legal analysis, in quotes, to arrive at that conclusion points up the muddled thinking that is at the very base of the need to have this constitutional amendment passed," Hunt said.


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Sources: WCNC, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

Maine Voters Have Their Say On Same Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage debate lands in Maine. The state’s rugged shores are forming the backdrop for the nation’s latest bruising fight over marriage.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps

Charlotte's Streetcar Issue Has Foes (NAACP) & Supporters Nationwide...Cincinnati Voters To Decide

Streetcars on the Ballot amid Trolley Revival


A streetcar revival in American cities isn't just kicking up sparks from the tracks, they're flying down at city hall, too.

In Idaho's capital, a proposed $60 million trolley plan has become a major theme of local elections Nov. 3. Likewise, mayoral races in Charlotte, N.C., and Cincinnati hinge at least partially on whether they should build lines of their own.

What links Boise, Cincinnati and Charlotte – and Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta and Kansas City, where streetcar tracks abandoned in 1953 still poke through the city's weathered asphalt – is they're among dozens of local governments hoping their modern street projects will benefit from federal grants, including $1.5 billion in stimulus funding due to be awarded by mid-February 2010.

In all, some 80 U.S. cities have streetcar proposals, the American Public Transportation Association says, a trend bolstered by President Barack Obama's signal he's more inclined to pump federal dollars into streetcars than was President Bush.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been revising policies that had favored applications for projects that moved people further and faster, like rapid-transit buses, but downplayed attributes like economic development.

"The bottom line is, this administration wants more transit options for more people and that includes streetcars," LaHood told The Associated Press last week.

In late October, his agency chipped in $75 million to help expand Portland, Ore.'s 7-year-old streetcar system, marking the first time the Small Starts grant program for small-scale urban transit projects has been used for streetcars.

Still, the availability of federal cash hasn't quelled local debate.

Proponents see streetcars as economic development engines that will reduce congestion and air-pollution by turning back the clock: Streetcars largely disappeared from U.S. cities by the 1950s, as automobiles bullied them to the margins.

In Portland, for instance, its streetcar system is credited with helping create $2.5 billion in construction since the line was announced in 1997, including 7,248 new housing units within three blocks of the tracks.

Foes, however, dismiss trolleys as "toy trains" that benefit special interests and promote profligate public spending. The rush for easy federal cash, they argue, is obscuring the reality that cities will eventually rely on taxpayers to subsidize lines; federal dollars go only for construction.

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory favors his city's $128 million streetcar plan, after traveling to Seattle and Toronto to see their urban rail projects. Brad Wenstrup, Mallory's challenger, calls the project "ill conceived" and compares it to Cincinnati's failed early 20th-century subway, where miles of tunnel were dug but no track ever laid.

Foes like the Cincinnati NAACP got a measure on the ballot seeking to require a popular vote before any streetcar could proceed.

"This is some kind of a dream sequence of people who want to pretend they are in Portland, Oregon," said Dusty Rhodes, the Hamilton County auditor and a vocal Cincinnati streetcar opponent.

Meanwhile, in Charlotte's mayoral race, Republican candidate John Lassiter said he likes the idea but insists there's no money to pay for it. Democrat Anthony Foxx contends a 10-mile line that could cost $400 million will help boost downtown's fortunes; last month, he voted to override the current mayor's veto of a $4.5 million engineering study.

The streetcar is one of the few areas where the two Charlotte candidates part ways.

Just days before Tuesday's city council election in Boise, David Litster, a Harvard-educated businessman who wants to kill the city's proposed 2.3-mile downtown line, mailed flyers suggesting his opponent TJ Thomson is in cahoots with streetcar backers like Mayor Dave Bieter. Bieter has endorsed Thomson.

"The streetcar is really just a symptom of a problem – keeping a careful eye on spending and keeping taxes low, and listening to voters," Litster said. "This trolley fails on both accounts."

Thomson, an Idaho Power Co. auditor who worked on Obama's 2008 campaign, counters Litster is misrepresenting his stance: Thomson is undecided whether to back the streetcar, especially before an economic study, and wants the matter to go to a vote.

He's also waiting to see if Boise gets $40 million of the proposed $60 million cost of the trolley system from the stimulus act, because it's competing with transportation proposals nationwide totaling $57 billion, 38 times what's available.

Litster "has run a one-issue campaign," Thomson said. "It's just not that simple. But he's done a good job of keeping it in the spotlight."






Lassiter, Foxx stick to their streetcars


In their first televised debate, Democrat Anthony Foxx and Republican John Lassiter Tuesday night continued to disagree over a $4.5 million streetcar study and the effect it has on an overall transit plan.

They met for an hourlong debate at Shalom Park, broadcast by WBTV and sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte.

The candidates agreed on some things: the need to diversify the city's economy while retaining current jobs, and to improve relations with Raleigh. They recounted differences over the 2006 city budget. Lassiter opposed its 9 percent property tax hike. Foxx supported the additional police officers and road improvements the tax allowed.

But while they both support a proposed streetcar, they parted ways on the council's decision last month to spend $4.5 million on an engineering study.

Foxx led Democrats in overriding Mayor Pat McCrory's veto of the money. He said a study showed that the streetcar, which would run from the Rosa Parks Transit Center on Beatties Ford Road to Eastland Mall, via Trade Street uptown, would bring $1 billion in investment to parts of town that badly need it.

"It would be the one investment the city could make that would trigger" revitalization, he said Tuesday night.

But Lassiter said he opposed the study because the city doesn't know where it would get the money to actually build the streetcar line, which is expected to cost more than $450million in local and federal money.

In addition, Lassiter said, it upsets what had been a carefully planned expansion of Charlotte transit that includes light rail to the UNC Charlotte area and commuter rail to Lake Norman. He said it sends the wrong signals to Washington and to commuter rail advocates in north Mecklenburg.

"It's a misplaced priority," he said of the streetcar. "We're seeing confusion in Washington about what our priority is."

Asked about that later, Foxx called it "ridiculous." He said officials in north Mecklenburg have assured him they have no problem with the streetcar.

The Charlotte Area Transit System originally planned to build all the rail lines but the recession has hurt revenues. The towns of Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson recently began their own lobbying effort in Washington on behalf of the north commuter line.

Their decision has rankled some on the Metropolitan Transit Commission, which plans where and when transit will be built, and which seeks a unified voice.

Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte, a member of the MTC, said Tuesday night that he's more worried about competition for dollars from the proposed northeast light rail line. But he said moving ahead with the streetcar complicates the whole transit equation.

"John's right in that it adds a complexity and it throws a little bit of curveball at us," Tarte told the Observer. "Anthony's right that a streetcar is a good thing."



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Sources: Huffington Post, Cincinnati Ohio NAACP, Wlwttv, McClatchy Nrwspapers, Charlotte Observer, Youtube, Google Maps