On May 8, 2012, the voters of North Carolina overwhelmingly approved the latest discriminatory amendment to a state constitution to deny to God's gay and lesbian children the legal rights of marriage. This measure was even more draconian than most because it bans not only marriage between same gender couples but also denies them the separate but supposedly equal legal rights commonly granted under so-called domestic partnership laws. This vote puts North Carolina squarely on the side of bigotry against equal respect and dignity, discrimination against justice, reaction against the tide of history, the wrong against the right. All people, people of faith most of all, who are committed to Jesus' values of inclusion and justice and who understand that the Bible can never legitimately be used to turn ancient cultural norms and anthropological ignorance into God's law must reject the decision by the voters of North Carolina.
We must reject that decision, but we must do much more than that. The measure North Carolina has adopted is to extreme, so unjust, so oppressive that we must take action. There is one obvious action that absolutely must be taken and must be take now. The 2012 Democratic National Convention is currently scheduled for September 3 through 6 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Democrats simply must move their convention out of North Carolina. They must do it immediately, and they must make it clear that the vote by the people of North Carolina to deny all legal rights to same gender couples is the reason they are doing it. Nothing else will make an adequate statement against the North Carolina vote. Nothing else will show the people of North Carolina that bigotry has consequences. Nothing else will say to North Carolina with sufficient force you're wrong, you're out of step with the advance of justice, and decent people who believe in equality and common human decency will not accept your decision.
I know that the logistics of moving the convention at this time will be a nightmare. It might not even be possible, but it would be better for the Democrats to have their delegates meet for one day in a hotel somewhere outside North Carolina simply to re-nominate President Obama than for them to hold a traditional nominating convention in North Carolina. If the Democrats will not move their convention, either because they don't want to or because they claim it cannot be done at this late date, delegates and people who would otherwise attend the convention should boycott it. The state Democratic parties can nominate candidates without a national convention, and it would be better for them to do so than for the Democrats to have a convention in North Carolina.
Consider this. What if North Carolina had voted to re-institute Jim Crow racial segregation? Yes, that vote would be invalid under federal law; but suppose North Carolina did it anyway. Would the Democrats still hold their convention in North Carolina? Wouldn't they move heaven and earth to find a way to have the convention, even a truncated convention that did no more than renominate President Obama, somewhere else? Of course they would. Denying same gender couples the legal rights of marriage is today's version of Jim Crow. Gays are the target du jour of American bigotry. (There are other targets, like “illegal” aliens; but that isn't our subject at the moment.) The bigots will lose this battle just as they lost the battle to preserve Jim Crow, but for now that battle continues. The forces of reaction and prejudice still win battles like the one they just won in North Carolina; but they are on the wrong side of history, and the Democrats simply must take a stand for justice.
The Democrats may well pass a resolution at the convention condemning the North Carolina vote, passing resolutions isn't enough. Holding the convention in North Carolina will still pump millions of dollars into that state. Resolutions do nothing but make the people passing them feel good. Money talks. The Democrats simply must vote with their money and move this year's nominating convention out of North Carolina.
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