Whether you are gay or straight, male or female, married or unmarried, Amendment One threatens your rights. It threatens your neighbor's rights. It threatens your children's rights.

We oppose Amendment One, a poorly-worded attempt by the state to regulate marriage, because it is discriminatory toward all North Carolina residents. It jeopardizes the rights of citizens involved in relationships outside the bill’s institutionalized definition of marriage.

In case you are unfamiliar with the bill, Amendment One seeks to define marriage between one man and one woman as “the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in the state.” If this amendment passes, our state constitution will become a document of injustice.

While the proponents of Amendment One mistakenly attempt to colorize the debate as a moral issue of protecting traditional values regarding marriage, discussing same-sex marriage in the same breath as Amendment One is irrelevant and demonstrates that many voters lack knowledge on what they’re voting for.

If you believe voting for Amendment One will be a decisive victory against the legalization of same-sex marriage, then you’re putting your eggs in the wrong basket. Same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina and will remain illegal no matter the outcome on May 8.

But regardless of your feelings about same-sex marriage, you should still vote against Amendment One.

The sobering reality is that Amendment One threatens the rights of heterosexual couples and their children as well as harming gay and lesbian couples. By limiting its definition of a legally recognized marital agreement to solely a man and woman, the state is effectively threatening the rights and privileges of all its residents, regardless of their orientation.

Eligibility for certain legal arrangements, such as health care coverage, child custody rights and protection from domestic abuse, is often determined by a person’s marital status. Additional legal disputes over domestic violence, hospital visitation, medical care and death benefits could result.

[box]Spectrum has organized a schedule of voting shuttles available to voters.[/box]

Equality North Carolina has stated that businesses and service providers will struggle to retain LGBTQ employees if their health care policies cannot guarantee equal benefits for them and their families under Amendment One provisions.

Amendment One would also curtail pre-existing rights for those in domestic partnerships and civil unions, as well as single parents. There are more than 220,000 unmarried couples living in North Carolina, according to Protect NC Families. Of those unmarried couples, more than 89,500 of them have children.

If Amendment One passes, according to Protect NC Families, those children could lose their health care and prescription drug coverage, putting their health at risk. If Amendment One passes, existing child custody and visitation rights that are designed to protect children from abusive parents could be overturned, potentially exposing those children to physical harm.

Amendment One is also discriminatory because of its failure to adhere to the state’s responsibilities under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The clause reads, “No state shall deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws.” Amendment One would not offer equal protection to same-gender couples.

This semester, you’ve read about the Vote Against movement garnering support in protest of Amendment One. President Leo Lambert and Smith Jackson, vice president and dean of Student Life, showed their opposition toward Amendment One during a Spectrum candlelight vigil in the fall.

[quote]Consider your responsibilities to yourself. Do you want to look back and regret having not voted against such a discriminatory bill?[/quote]

On Monday, Jackson sent an email offering information to students regarding voter registration and transportation to the polls. Several other members of Elon’s administration have also spoken against Amendment One, encouraging students to do the same.

Kirstin Ringelberg, coordinator of Elon’s LGBTQ office, said Elon students need to vote against Amendment One because she believes the issues it raises are already concerning to many students.

“Elon students are typically pretty sensitive, empathetic people who recognize that other human beings, no matter how different they might be, deserve equal treatment under the law,” she said. “You don’t have to agree with someone’s religion, racial or ethnic identity or political view, to recognize that they should have the same legal rights you do.”

Ringelberg said she hopes Elon students realize that while defeating this discriminatory amendment is an important step, they recognize that injustice continues to exist, and a person’s biggest mistake is a failure to act when injustice is forced upon them.

Living in a democracy may be a right afforded to us, but it is also a privilege, one that must be earned by living up to the responsibilities our nation’s laws hold us to.

Let us not stand by and allow injustice to be perpetrated on our neighbors and co-workers, on our friends or our families.

Consider your responsibilities as an Elon student. Consider your responsibilities as an informed citizen.

But most of all, consider your responsibilities to yourself. Do you want to look back and regret having not voted against such a discriminatory bill?

Vote against Amendment One, and you will be able to look back having landed on the right side of history.

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