North Carolina LGBT Activists Gearing up for Ballot Battle

With North Carolinians set to vote on an anti-gay marriage ballot measure in six months, state LGBT community members and organizers met in Greensboro over the weekend to discuss the battle, Qnotes reports.

"The language of this amendment is so extreme that even folks like Congresswoman Renee Ellmers, a conservative Tea Party representative, has said she'll vote against it," said Stuart Campbell, Equality North Carolina's new executive director. "Our task -- all of us, everyone in this room -- will be to educate voters in North Carolina. Regardless of how you feel about marriage equality, this amendment is just bad for this state.

By some accounts, the campaign faces an uphill battle. A recent Public Policy Polling survey of 615 voters found that 59% of respondents would support a ballot initiative defining marriage "between one man and one woman [as] the only domestic legal union."

But the wording of the question appears to be crucial: Asked if they would support an amendment to the state constitution that would "prevent any same-sex marriages," 57% said they would oppose such a measure, according to a different poll of 529 people by Elon University released last week.

Campbell is co-chairing the organization's campaign to defeat the May ballot measure along with Jeremy Kennedy, a former field organizer with the Human Rights Campaign.

Read the QNotes article here.