Thoughts on the fallout of Amendment One

By Adam Carlson

Well, the amendment passed and now the opinions are flying left and right like shit being hurled from the monkey house at the zoo.

There have been a lot of people who voted for this amendment stating that they did so and that they are proud of their choice to vote their beliefs. Furthermore most have also pointed out that they feel persecuted because those with progressive views (not to mention those of us who are actually educated and informed) are calling them ignorant for it.

For the record, if you voted pro Amendment One believing that it was really about blocking homosexual marriage from attaining legal status in North Carolina you did vote out of ignorance. Also, if you voted pro Amendment One believing that it was legislation to MAKE homosexual marriage illegal in North Carolina, you ARE actually ignorant (by definition). Gay marriage has never been legally recognized in N.C., part of this amendment was simply blocking the ability of any one judge to overturn that by writing it into our constitution. And that was just the bait!

Backward, Christian soldiers

By Corey Friedman

As applied to hardline, hellfire, pulpit-pounding preachers, the term “fundamentalist” is a misnomer.

Today’s evangelical Christians are quick to volunteer for the Republican Party — let’s elect more God-fearing folks to public office! — and hold picket parties at porn shops and abortion clinics. But there’s nothing Biblically fundamental about this sociopolitical movement. It’s more conservative than it is Christian.

Separation of church and state is a perpetual target for many ministers who want to fuse religion with conservative politics. Jesus of Nazareth, however, had no designs on national government. It was his pronounced resistance to leading a Jewish revolution that led many Jews to reject him; they pictured their Messiah as a worldly king who would rescue them from Roman subjugation.