The wife of a prominent North Carolina state senator and supporter of Amendment 1 — a proposed ballot initiative that would outlaw same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships in the state — claimed earlier this week that her husband advocated for the measure to protect the “Caucasian” race.

Jodie Brunstetter, the wife of North Carolina state Sen. Peter Brunstetter, made the remarks “outside the early voting site at the Forsyth County Government Center in downtown Winston-Salem” while speaking to voters, Chad Nance, a Winston-Salem freelance journalist, reports. Nance heard about Jodie’s comments from an African-American poll worker who allegedly overheard Brunstetter say, “The reason my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce.”

Asked to clarify her statement, Brunstetter reluctantly confirmed that she did in fact use the phrase “Caucasian”:

BRUNSTETTER: [P]eople who founded 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.

NANCE: You didn’t tell that one lady that it was to preserve the Caucasian race, because they were becoming a minority? That’s what an old lady down the block told us.

BRUNSTETTER: No, no.

NANCE: You didn’t say that? She’s lying?

BRUNSTETTER: No. It’s just that same sex marriages are not having children. [...]

NANCE: You didn’t say anything about Caucasians?

BRUNSTETTER: I probably said the word.

NANCE: In reference to….? You didn’t tell her anything about Caucasians? …

BRUNSTETTER: 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 so there has been a lot of conversation going back and forth…. Right now I have some heat stroke going on. I’m not quite sure now. Because there has been lots of confusion.

NANCE: So you did or did not say anything about Caucasians?

BRUNSTETTER: If I did it wasn’t anything race related.

Watch it:

Responding to his wife’s comments, Sen. Brunstetter told ThinkProgress, “I know my wife does not think like that,” but admitted that “She got very flustered (she is not a political person) and then someone came up to her and started shooting questions at her. She noticed later that there was someone video taping without her knowledge.”

“My wife is one of the sweetest, most genuine people you will ever meet,” he added. “Her convictions on the marriage amendment are spiritual in nature, not racial. The individual in question had been quite abusive and intimidating. The Amendment is not racially motivated, is quite simple and straightforward and, in fact, is widely supported in many areas of the African American community.”

Jodie told the Winston-Salem Journal, “I seriously don’t remember.” “There was quite a bit of conversation … the reasons for the amendment is for there to be marriage between a man and a woman and it does not matter what race.”

Amendment 1, which goes to a vote on May 8, has already divided the African American community between leaders who argue that the Bible prohibits homosexual behavior and those who maintain that religious interpretations should not influence civil laws. The comments by Mrs. Brunstetter will likely interject more racial division into the debate.

For ThinkProgress’ full coverage of Amendment 1, click here.

Under the guise of “enhancing support,” administrators at the University of Notre Dame made it clear last week that they are not making any serious changes to support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning members of its campus community. Students, faculty, and staff have spent the spring demanding that “It needs to get better,” but according to a news release, the university is not adding sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy, nor is it taking steps to allow a student gay-straight alliance to form on campus — which it has previously rejected 15 times.

Instead, administrators merely committed to more “ongoing dialogue,” falling back on the university’s 15-year-old “Statement of Inclusion,” which recognizes gays and lesbians as members of the community but offers them no legal protections. Vice President for Student Affairs Rev. Thomas P. Doyle tried to make it sound like the campus environment had dramatically changed in the interim:

DOYLE: The University has made significant progress over the past 15 years in its support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and questioning students, but we’ve always emphasized the desire to continuously improve and to be responsive to student concerns. The conversations between students and the administration both recently and over the past several years have been very important.

This is unhelpful pandering. Conversations only lead to change if the invested parties listen to each other, and Doyle’s remarks demonstrate that administrators are clearly not listening to the community’s concerns. Notre Dame trustees last voted against adding sexual orientation protections fifteen years ago, and in those fifteen years, nothing has changed. In fact, the status quo dates back to 1977, when trustees expressed concern that non-discrimination protections could inhibit the university’s ability to “make decisions that are necessary to support Catholic Church teaching.”

Administrators claim they are committed to “improving awareness.” Perhaps they had best begin with their own.

A House committee in Rhode Island will consider several bills related to same-sex unions, marriage, and divorce on Wednesday:

– One proposal would allow same-sex marriage in Rhode Island, recognize previously performed civil unions as marriages, and recognize unions and marriages performed in other jurisdictions as marriages.

– A second measure would allow divorce in Rhode Island for couples legally married elsewhere.

– A third bill would repeal the controversial amendment attached to last year’s civil unions bill that allows for certain organizations to use religion as an excuse to refuse services to couples who have a civil union.

The state does not currently recognize same-sex marriages, but does allow for civil unions. Couples are shunning that law’s broad religious exemption, however, which allows organizations to ignore their relationships and are traveling to neighboring states for full marriage equality. Still, marriage law in the state remains muddled. In 2007, Attorney General Patrick Lynch released a legal opinion stating that the state did not explicitly prohibit same-sex marriage and should recognize gay unions performed in other states. That same year, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that a same-sex couple could not divorce in the state.

As news broke that Richard Grenell — the openly-gay conservative foreign policy spokesperson hired by Mitt Romney — had resigned following pressure from right-wing activists, word came down that the House Republicans have intervened to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and related laws in McLaughlin v. United States, a challenge brought by eight gay and lesbian servicemembers, veterans and their spouses who allege they face discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.

That lawsuit claims that Maj. Shannon McLaughlin of the Massachusetts National Guard and her partner Casey are denied benefits that similarly situated opposite-sex couples enjoy as a result of the 1996 law, which “violates constitutional equal protection guarantees,” “the Tenth Amendment and constitutional principles of federalism.” DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples.

The House Republican leadership — in the form of the The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — agreed to defend the discriminatory treatment after Obama administration announced that it will not argue on behalf laws that prevent married same-sex couples from obtaining military benefits. Metro Weekly’s Chris Geidner has more:

The move is similar to BLAG’s action in a similar case brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cooper-Harris v. United States, in which equal veterans benefits are being sought. BLAG, which is controlled by the House Republican leadership, has intervened in several DOMA challenges to defend the 1996 law after the Obama administration stopped defending the federal definition of marriage in February 2011, when Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder concluded the law was unconstitutional.

In a statement today, SLDN executive director Aubrey Sarvis said, “Speaker Boehner’s request to defend this case in the wake of the ongoing harm done to military families by these discriminatory laws is reprehensible and callous.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office immediately condemned the action, noting, “The men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces risk their lives for the country they love and do not deserve to face prejudice, especially from our nation’s elected leaders, when they return home. Speaker Boehner should grant the request of Leader Pelosi and Whip Hoyer for a vote of the BLAG on the expanded DOMA defense efforts regarding veterans cases and allow the Committee on House Administration and the Ethics Committee to review any new contracts or additional expenditures of taxpayer funds.”

This is the 12th case in which Boehner has intervened and it comes as the head of his party fails to stand up to the anti-gay wing of the conservative movement.