Rally Against Amendment One

See highlights from the powerful Rally Against Amendment One at College Park on April 16, 2012. Read more about our fight against Amendment One. VIDEOS FROM THE RALLY Thanks to the 700 attendees that packed the church!

Dr. Rev. William Barber, President NC NAACP

Maxine Eichner, UNC School of Law: Legal Harms of Amendment One

Rabbi Larry Milder: Greensboro Jewish Community Against Amendment One

Laurelyn Dossett & Friends: Vote Against Amendment One

PRESENTED BY College Park Baptist Church with: Greensboro People of Faith (40 interfaith clergy and faith leaders) National Conference For Community & Justice (NCCJ) Coalition to Protect NC Families We Are (UNCG) Guilford Green Foundation OutLaw (Elon University School of Law) Guilford County Democratic Party PFLAG-Greensboro GUEST SPEAKERS Rev. Dr. William Barber, President North Carolina NAACP “A vote on the same sex marriage amendment has nothing to do with your personal opinion on same sex marriage but everything to do with whether or not you believe discrimination should be codified and legalized constitutionally.” Rev. Barber is the President of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP (since 2005) and National Board Member (since 2009). Since he became President, he has lead the North Carolina NAACP State Conference to national recognition when he accepted the 2006 Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Esq. Award for legal activism, the highest award in the NAACP for Legal Redress for Advocacy. The NC NAACP is the largest state conference in the south—third largest in nation. He chairs the National Political Action Committee of NAACP and serves as former executive director of the NC Human Relation Commission. Rev. Barber has led the fight against denial of voting rights, educational inequality, economic injustice, and attacks on equal protection under the law. He has helped secure release of African American men from Death Row and the passage of the Racial Justice Act. He helped win Same Day Registration Early Voting in NC—only state in the south. He has lead Historic Thousands On Jones Street, a coalition of over 125 progressive organizations who combined have over 1 million members to champion a 14 point anti-racism, anti poverty, anti war agenda. Read the NAACP Letter Opposing Amendment One Maxine Eichner, Professor of Law at UNC School of Law “The marriage amendment is being described as simply putting our current legal ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution. Make no mistake about it, though: the proposed amendment goes much further than that.” Maxine Eichner is Reef Ivey II Professor of Law at UNC School of Law. She attended Yale College and Yale Law School, where she was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, she held a Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship through Georgetown Law School, clerked for Judge Louis Oberdorfer in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and then clerked for Judge Betty Fletcher in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She subsequently practiced law at the firm of Patterson, Harkavy, and Lawrence in Raleigh. She began teaching at UNC School of Law in January 2003. While on the faculty, she earned a Ph.D. in political science at UNC. She writes on issues at the intersection of law and political theory, focusing particularly on family relationships, social welfare law and policy. Professor Eichner is the author of The Supportive State: Families, Government, and America's Political Ideals (Oxford University Press, 2010). She is also an editor of Family Law: Cases, Text, Problems (eds., Ellman, Kurtz, Weithorn, Bix, Czapanskiy, and Eichner, 2010). See Dr. Eichner's "Legal Effects of Amendment One" GREENSBORO FAITH LEADERS AGAINST AMENDMENT ONE  Rev. Jill Alventosa-Brown, St. Timothy United Methodist Church  Rev. Audra Abt, Priest, St. Andrews Episcopal Church Rabbinit Tanya A. Alkhaliq, Servant-Leader, Strong Tower Holy ATLG Rev. Dr. Arnetta E. Beverly, Pastor, St. Matthews United Methodist Church Rev. Lin Bunce, Associate Minister, College Park Baptist Church Rev. Dr. M. Gray Clark, Pastor, Presbyterian Church of the Cross Rabbi Geoffrey Claussen, Elon University, Department of Religious Studies Ms. Cindy Dillon, Minister of Small Groups, College Park Baptist Church Rabbi Fred Guttman, Temple Emanuel Greensboro Rev. Dr. Susan D. Finley, College Park Baptist Church   Rev. David Fraccaro, Executive Director, FaithAction International House Rev. Tempe' Lee Fussell, Pastor, Sedgefield Presbyterian Church Rev. Dr. Chris East, Co-Pastor, Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, Epiphany Presbyterian Rev. Beverly E. Gaska, Minister, Summerfield United Methodist Church Mr. Rydell Harrison, Minister of Music and Worship, College Park Baptist Church Rabbi Eli Havivi, Beth David Synagogue Rev. Sheila Hoyer, Minister, First Friends Meeting Rev. Wes Isley, Interfaith Minister  Ms. Evelyn Jadin, Pastoral Intern, First Friends Meeting Rev. Catherine Klein, Minister, Unity in Greensboro Rabbi Andy Koren, Temple Emanuel Greensboro Rev. Paul Lowder, Retired UMC Minister Rev. Jim Luck, Interim Pastor, Peace United Church of Christ Rev Dr. Charles D Lumpkin, Hospital Chaplain Rt. Rev. Alfred “Chip” Marble, Assisting Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina Rev. Angus McGregor, Christ Presbyterian Church Rabbi Dr. Laurence Milder, American Hebrew Academy  Rev. Daniel Miles, Chaplain, Alamance Regional Medical Center • Bishop Donagrant L. McCluney, Pastor, Progressive Pentecostal Church of the Triad  Rev. David Partington, Presbyterian Church (USA) Rev. Julie Peeples, Senior Pastor, Congregational United Church of Christ Rev. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters, Elon University, Department of Religious Studies Rev. Warren Pittman, Pastor & Rector, All Saints Episcopal Church Pastors & Ministers of The Pulpit Forum Rev. Scott Orr, Baptist Minister Rabbi Harry Z. Sky, Retired, Temple Beth El, Portland, Maine Rev. Pam L. Strader, Associate Pastor, West Market Street United Methodist Church Rev. Dr. Michael Usey, Pastor, College Park Baptist Church Rev. Dale Walker, Presbyterian Church (USA) MORE ABOUT AMENDMENT ONE Read more about our fight against Amendment One. What is Amendment One? A proposal to amend the North Carolina Constitution will be on North Carolina’s statewide primary ballot on May 8, 2012. The only Amendment language that will appear on the ballot will be: “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” This is only the sixth time since 1971 that a constitutional question has been on a primary ballot. Why Vote AGAINST? Here is a STATEMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA CLERGY AND FAITH LEADERS AGAINST AMENDMENT ONE that explains why: As clergy and leaders in our faith traditions, we are mandated by God to demonstrate and protect love in all its forms and to stand for justice for all of creation. In faithful response to this calling, we commit ourselves, along with thousands of other Christians, Jews, Muslims and other people of faith around North Carolina, to voice our opposition to Amendment One, to witness to the harms it would cause ALL of God’s children in North Carolina and to use the gifts God has given us to defeat this amendment. We stand in moral opposition to Amendment One and urge North Carolina voters to vote AGAINST this extreme and harmful change to our constitution. What It Says “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” What It Actually Does In addition to prohibiting same-sex marriage, as state statute already does, the Amendment would: prohibit North Carolina from passing civil unions; bar the state from instituting domestic partnership rights; strip the domestic partner insurance benefits currently offered to employees by a number of local governments, including Chapel Hill, Durham, Greensboro, and Mecklenburg and Orange Counties. In addition, courts could interpret the language of the Amendment to ban any rights to state’s hundreds of thousands of unmarried couples—both same and opposite-gender. This would: invalidate domestic violence protections for all unmarried partners; undercut existing child custody and visitation rights that are designed to protect the best interests of children; prevent the state from giving committed couples rights to allow them to order their relationships, including threatening their ability to determine the disposition of their deceased partner’s remains; to make medical decisions if their partner is incapacitated; and to allow second-parent adoptions in order to ensure that both partners have a legal tie to, and financial responsibilities for, the children they are raising. invalidate trusts, wills, and end-of-life directives by one partner in favor of the other. Read more about our fight against Amendment One. Bible & Homosexuality Bible Study. Parents of Gay Son: Why Daniel Means Much