UNC School of Law hosts Defense of Marriage amendment debate

The Defense of Marriage amendment has become a hot-button issue in the state, but the debates have just begun.

Students and professors filled the seats and lined the edges of the room at the UNC School of Law to listen to Reps. Paul Stam, R-Wake, and Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, both lawyers, talk Wednesday about the legislation.

Meghan Melloy was one of several law students toting signs protesting the amendment — hers called it a “hate policy.”

Andy Rodenbough, another law student who attended the event, said he was surprised by the civility of the debate on such an emotional and controversial issue.

“This amendment absolutely has to be defeated,” he said. “It’s dangerous that it could potentially go much further than the existing law.”

But the debate was heated, and the crowd decidedly supported Glazier’s stance in opposition to the amendment.

Glazier said it would have much broader implications than existing law, which already bans same-sex marriage. It would not acknowledge civil unions or domestic partnerships, even between heterosexual couples.

He said it would affect the legality of joint parenting rights agreements, public housing eligibility, access to Medicaid and health decision rights for people’s partners.

“It is not a codification of existing law but a vast expansion, creating one of the most personally intrusive and extreme laws in the country,” he said.

But according to the second sentence of the amendment, it will not interfere with contractual agreements between individuals. And Stam said that provision would prevent many of the problems Glazier cited.

He said the amendment would just make it harder for judges or future legislators to legalize same-sex marriage, protecting a law that has not been challenged, by judge or legislator in North Carolina, since it passed in 1996.

Stam said Gov. Bev Perdue voted for the law in 1996, and she has refused to take a stance on the amendment thus far. Attorney General Roy Cooper and N.C. Rep. Joe Hackney, D-Orange, also voted for the 1996 law.

“If their attitudes have changed in the last 15 years, why didn’t they introduce a bill to reverse it when they had control of the House and the Senate and the Governor’s mansion?” said N.C. Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, in a radio debate about the amendment.

Folwell debated Alex Miller, the interim executive director of Equality NC, an organization campaigning against the amendment. Folwell accused him of being against traditional heterosexual marriage. Miller, who is married, said the amendment is simply unnecessary.

“This does nothing to defend my marriage, does nothing to help me,” Miller said of the Defense of Marriage amendment. “All it does is hurt friends of mine and hurt business in the state.”

But the law that already bans same-sex marriage hasn’t hurt business, Stam said in the UNC debate.

North Carolina’s amendment would be among the broadest in the nation, Glazier said. Insurance and health benefits from businesses could be endangered for people in unmarried relationships, and 80 businesses, including Bank of America, have denounced the legislation.

Many businesses are worried not only about logistics, but about alienating the gay population and hurting the creative class in the state, Glazier said.

He and Stam spoke with students in a reception after the debate, answering questions and listening to students’ comments.

In response to students’ congratulations, Glazier said the fight over the amendment is a “winnable battle.”

“But the students have to participate,” he said.

“It’s the students that will make the difference.”

Contact the State & National Editor at state@dailytarheel.com.