Via Faith In America: N.C. lawmakers who vote for anti-gay marriage initiative will have to answer for harm caused

Faith in America today announced a statewide campaign that will bring awareness about the harm caused to LGBT youth and families to the communities of every North Carolina legislator that votes to proceed with an anti-gay marriage amendment to state constitution.

The North Carolina General Assembly could decide as early as tomorrow on whether to proceed with a vote that would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage, despite the fact that state law currently recognizes only marriages between two people of the opposite sex.

"Going forward with this vote signals that the North Carolina General Assembly embraces the immense harm that religion-based bigotry places on the lives of this state's gay and lesbian citizens," said Brent Childers, executive director of the organization.

Childers said recent studies, from the American Psychology Association (APA) and one by the Centers of Disease Control have documented a link between anti-gay marriage amendments and emotional and psychological harm to gay and lesbian individuals. In the 2008 APA studies, lead researcher, Sharon Scales Rostosky, Ph.D., at the University of Kentucky, said emotional and psychological harm was "a direct result of the negative images and messages associated with the ballot campaign and the passage of the amendment."

"These studies only document what common sense tells us," Childers said. "Placing a moral and religious stamp of disapproval on someone's very being causes immense and lasting harm to individuals and society. Women, African Americans, Native Americans and interracial couples have all been targets of this vile form of bigotry in the past when religious teaching was misused to justify prejudice and discrimination. Those historical precedents of religion-based bigotry all have been judged as immoral. Yet, a group of ill-intentioned lawmakers want North Carolina to embrace that same form of bigotry today.

Childers said he is hopeful lawmakers will refrain from bringing such harm to North Carolina communities. He said he believes the majority of legislators do not agree with using misguided religious teaching to cause harm to innocent people, especially LGBT youth and families.

"We hope a majority of legislators will decide in favor of human dignity and equality rather than using their vote to bring harm to others for potential political gain or favor. If they come down on the side of causing harm to LGBT youth and families, they will not do so with impunity."

Childers said the organization will conduct public awareness campaigns in the communities of every legislator who votes to proceed with the anti-gay marriage initiative.

"The constituents of every legislator who votes to proceed with the anti-gay marriage initiative are going to learn how these elected officials are promoting a social and religious climate of hostility and violence toward innocent people and children. We plan to reveal to parents,  business owners, church-goers and the kids in these legislators 'hometowns the heinous and immensely harmful form of bigotry and prejudice that these legislators are embracing."

Faith in America is a N.C.-based nonprofit organization which works nationally to educate the American public about religion-based bigotry, its harm to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals and its history of oppression toward other minorities in American society. Brent Childers, who himself  as an evangelical once identified with the Religious Right and embraced religion-based bigotry toward the LGBT community, serves as its executive director.