In a column he penned for his influential website, conservative commentator Erick Erickson called on North Carolinians to support Amendment One, a proposed change to the state’s constitution that would ensure legal recognition only for marriage between a man and a woman. The measure will be voted on in a statewide election today.
Erickson, the editor-in-chief of RedState.com, urged North Carolina voters to help pass the amendment in order to prevent “liberal judges and gay rights activists” from changing the definition of marriage.
“Over several thousand years, whether by edict from on high or through trial and error, humans settled on the two parent, heterosexual nuclear household as the most stabilizing force in society,” Erickson writes. “In the past few decades, many people have decided that several thousand years of human history can be ignored in favor of unproven claims of happiness, fairness, progress, and an expanded notion of equality.”
Opponents to Amendment One have sought to predicate the campaign on everything but same-sex marriage, which is already illegal under current North Carolina law. Instead, they argue, the amendment would jeopardize the legal status for domestic partnerships and civil unions involving both gay and straight couples alike. Erickson’s column reflects the approach taken by the pro-amendment contigent, which has emphasized concepts such as the sanctity of marriage and traditional values.
