North Carolina Business Faces Backlash For Defending Equality |
Today the New York Times profiled Replacements Limited, a silver, china, and glassware shop in Greensboro whose owner strongly opposed Amendment One. Many wrote to him attacking his business, claiming they could never bring their children to the store and promising never to patronize him again. Bob Page defended his choices, saying, “I just refuse to hide. I did that way too many years and it’s just not healthy… My life is not about money.” The hostility Page has faced nullifies arguments made by opponents of marriage equality like the National Organization for Marriage, which claims that their supporters are the victims. In any political disagreement, both sides can often be targeted for their views and one is not “more” the victim than the other. Page should be applauded for standing up for his partner of 23 years and their 13-year-old twins, regardless of the backlash he’s faced.
The anti-gay North Carolina pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church has been facing backlash over his recent sermon in which he said the US should pen in “all the lesbians and queers” with an electrified fence and wait for them to “die out.”
But it turns out Worley has been saying offensive things about gay people for decades.
Jeremy Hooper dug up this bit of hate from Worley in 1978, in which Worley says that “40 years ago” gay people would have been hung “from a white oak tree”:
WORLEY: I’m God’s preacher. I just believe the book. Living in a day when, you know what, it saddens my heart to think that homosexuals can go around, bless God, and get the applause of a lot of people. Lesbians and all the rest of it? Bless God, forty years ago they’d have hung ‘em, bless God, from a white oak tree, wouldn’t they? Amen.
Listen to it:
Update
Today David Pakman interviewed a lesbian who has a family member who belongs to Worley’s congregation and who has personally attended Pastor Worley’s church. She told him that she was “not surprised” by Worley’s comments, adding that there were “quite a few ‘Amens’ from the congregation”:
North Carolina Anti-Gay ‘Electrified Fence’ Pastor Faces National Backlash |
Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina told his congregation this Sunday that he wants to set up gay concentration camps for “lesbians and queers” to let them die out, and the backlash has been strong. Thanks to complaints from many individuals, Pastor Worley no longer has a website, because the company that produced and hosted it took it down after receiving numerous complaints. Both Anderson Cooper and Martin Bashir took on Worley on their respective shows yesterday, highlighting not only how wrong his interpretation of scripture was, but how dangerous his rhetoric was. Watch the clips:
North Carolina Pastor Charles Worley shared with his congregation this weekend how he thinks the country should deal with the scourge of gay men and lesbians: Lock them into a pen with an electrified fence, drop food down to them, and because they can’t reproduce, they will die out.
The Pastor’s leper colony-esque proposal came in response to the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, which he said “anybody with any sense” would be against. Worley explained that the idea of two men kissing makes him “pukin’ sick,” so he developed a proposal to “get rid of all the lesbians and queers”:
WORLEY: I figured a way out — a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But I couldn’t get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed ‘em, and– And you know what? In a few years they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce.
Watch it:
These comments are in line with other anti-gay religious leaders in the state, like Sean Harris, who said parents should “crack” their children’s “limp wrist.” Harris walked back his statements, but Worley emphasized in his speech that he did, in fact, “mean to say that.”
Two NC Couples Denied Marriage Licenses As Part Of ‘We Do’ Campaign |
Two more lesbian couples were denied marriage licenses in North Carolina on Tuesday. The requests came as part of the week-long “We Do” campaign, organized by the Campaign for Southern Equality. The first couple to request a marriage license, Alice Phelan and Sally Young, have been together for 29 years. The other women, Laurel and Amy Rose, were legally married in Washington, DC in 2010 and wanted their marriage to be recognized in North Carolina. Both couples knew their requests would be rejected, since North Carolina previously had a law banning same-sex marriage. That ban was recently written into the state constitution with the passage of Amendment One. Despite this, LGBT rights supporters say they will continue fighting for equal rights in the state:
Yesterday, Mary Jamis and her partner joined eight other gay and lesbian couples to seek a marriage license at the Register of Deeds office in Winston-Salem. Although the other couples left the office after being denied, Jamis and a straight friend of hers who joined the protest chose to remain behind and refuse to leave until Jamis was given her constitutional right to marry the person she loves. This was the result:
This is at least the third time a North Carolina woman was arrested simply for insisting upon her constitutional right to be free from marriage discrimination. Last fall, a lesbian couple who had been together for 30 years were arrested after seeking a marriage license in Asheville, NC.
Planned Parenthood helped knock a 28-year incumbent out of the North Carolina General Assembly after the conservative Democrat sided with Republicans to vote in favor of a controversial anti-abortion bill last year. State Rep. Jim Crawford (D) joined four other Democrats who helped Republicans override Gov. Bev Perdue’s (D) veto to pass legislation that requires women get ultrasound exams, receive counseling, and wait 24 hours before having an abortion.
Planned Parenthood responded by supporting Rep. W.A. “Winkie” Wilkins’ (D) campaign against Crawford in a redrawn district that favored Wilkins. The women’s health organization claimed victory in statements released after Tuesday’s election:
“There is no question,” says Melissa Reed, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood Health Systems Action Fund. “Women were watching as Jim Crawford cast the deciding vote in support of legislation to undermine a woman’s right to make personal health decisions without government intrusion.” [...]
“Nowhere has the attack on women’s health been waged more viciously than in North Carolina” added Paige Johnson, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Central North Carolina. “Yesterday’s defeat of Jim Crawford by Winkie Wilkins shows clearly that women have had enough. We are mobilizing to help elect candidates like Winkie Wilkins, who will stand strong for women’s health in 2012 and beyond.”
Planned Parenthood also got involved in a Pennsylvania election, spending $100,000 on an ad attacking Republican Ryan Mackenzie for his support of an invasive ultrasound bill. And as state legislatures have approved another round of restrictive abortion regulations so far this year, it’s likely that women will continue to target Republicans who voted to limit their health care options.
14K Sign Petition Urging Democrats To Move Convention Out Of North Carolina | North Carolina approved Amendment 1 yesterday, banning same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships in the state constitution. By this morning, a Change.org petition created by Gay Marriage USA has already received more than 14,000 signatures urging the Democratic National Convention to move its operations out of the state. Since the convention is planned for Charlotte, North Carolina this September, the petition asks the DNC to move “to a state that upholds values of equality & liberty, and which treats ALL citizens equally.”
NEWS FLASH
North Carolina Voters Approve Marriage Inequality Amendment |
After months of contentious campaigning on both sides of the issue, the Associated Press is reporting that North Carolina voters have approved Amendment One. The constitutional revision bans not only same-sex marriage, but civil unions and domestic partnerships as well. Voter turnout is expected to break 2008′s primary record of 2.1 million. Opponents received reports earlier in the day that young voters in some areas were given incorrect ballots preventing them from voting on the amendment. Conservatives are celebrating a victory, but the vote count so far seems to mirror polling that consistently found that voters were largely unaware of the full impact of the measure. The majority of people in North Carolina clearly do not support this kind of anti-gay discrimination, but misinformation won the day.
Update
Voters approved the amendment by a 61%-39% margin with all counties reporting, according to unofficial returns from the State Board of Elections.
NEWS FLASH
North Carolina GOP Candidate Stands By Birther Claim |
Yesterday, we noted that North Carolina has a disturbingly high number of Republican congressional candidates who have dabbled in bitherism, including Dr. John Whitley, who declared Obama’s birth certificate a “poorly reproduced forgery.” CNN host Anderson Cooper decided to challenge Whitley — a neurosurgeon who should certainly know better — but the candidate was unrepentant in an interview last night. Cooper poked holes in every one of Whitley’s claims, but the most the Republican would do is back off his claim that it was definitely a “forgery” to say that there were still serious questions about Obama’s birthplace. “I don’t think that the document…is an actual, legitimate copy,” he explained. Watch it:
Whitley is facing a primary today against Richard Hudson, who has also questioned Obama’s birth place, though has since walked back the claim a bit.
Planned Parenthood helped knock a 28-year incumbent out of the North Carolina General Assembly after the conservative Democrat sided with Republicans to vote 
