The right-wing legislators and advocates pushing the Tillis-Berger, anti-LGBT amendment have several lame arguments, but there’s one that has to be one of, if not the dumbest/weakest. It goes like this:
“Many Democrats (like Governor Perdue) voted for a proposed bill in 1996 to restate the statutory ban on same sex marriage. How can they stand now in opposition to our amendment? What’s the difference?”
First of all, there’s an enormous difference between voting for a statute and voting for something that actually alters the state constitution. Is the Tillis-Berger team telling us that they would have voted for constitutional amendments on all of the subjects on which they passed statutes in the recently adjourned legislative session? Of course not.
But laying that aside, here’s the more relevant point: Fifteen years is a long time. Hundreds of millions of Americans have changed their attitudes on marriage and LGBT equality during theat period. As was the case when millions of Americans opposed interracial marriage in, say, 1955, but supported it in 1970, times are a changin’.
That’s why the haters and the theocrats are in such a hurry to act now. they can see the forces of history are moving against them and they’re desperate to do anything they can to resist the tide before they’re swept away.