Bank of America's executive of Global Technology and Operations,
North Carolinian Catherine P. Bessant, makes the case that Amendment One is bad for business.
Today the Protect ALL NC Families, the campaign fighting North Carolina's Amendment One ballot initiative, is launching a Netroots Money bomb action. From Protect ALL NC Families:
Raleigh, NC, March 26, 2012 - On Monday, March 26, Protect All NC Families, the coalition effort to defeat Amendment One on May 8, announced the launch of an aggressive weeklong grassroots fundraising effort to reach the referendum campaign’s initial $1 million dollar fundraising milestone.
To date, Protect All NC Families has already raised more than $950,000 in financial contributions, the vast majority from thousands of individual North Carolina donors, as well as key coalition members the Human Rights Campaign, Replacements, Ltd, Self-Help, Equality NC, ACLU NC and others.
The campaign launched this week’s fundraising campaign, also known as a “money bomb,” as a primarily online effort in order to bring a national focus to Protect All NC Families and their efforts to defeat Amendment One. The money bomb will encompass a major social media fundraising push, state and national blogger outreach, the coalition campaign’s over 100 partner organizations and others to build on the campaign’s momentum.
To learn more, visit: Protect ALL NC's Families Money Bomb ActBlue
“This seven-day money bomb enables us to do the most important thing we could in this campaign: educate as many state citizens as possible in as many ways as possible about the harms of this constitutional amendment, including communicating those harms to women, children and families on television and radio,” said Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for Protect All NC Families.
CoverItLive with Jeremy Kennedy
Campaign Manager Jeremy Kennedy will participate in a live chat hosted by Pam Spaulding, Joe Sudbay, Adam Bink and Bil at Bilerico Project from 3-4pm EST on Monday.
I have made the case before that I believe victory in NC is possible (see
Visualizing Victory over North Carolina's anti-gay amendment). I think the campaign has a winning message, what they need is resources to take it to the voters. And right now by resources, that means more money.
The amendment's proponents just debuted a new ad, urging people to "protect" marriage from the imaginary attack:
It's the usual lies and nonsense, including the fact that voting against the amendment will do nothing to legalize marriage equality, it is now, and will remain banned by statute. North Carolinian Pam Spaulding deconstructs the ad at her site Pam's House Blend.
That our team is fast closing in on the million dollar mark and 92% of their donations are in-state is a strong sign the campaign is prospering in the Tarheel state. But it's also a sign that nationally, the community has not rallied around North Carolina the way they did California in 2008, which saw a flood of money pouring in.
Some have written this fight off as hopeless.
But I don't buy that North Carolinians are just too southern and can't be reached and educated. These are pronouncements made by people who don't live there and underestimate the North Carolina people and are more than a little condescending to the most progressive southern state, which broke for a guy named Barack Obama in 2008.
And in my opinion predicting the future by relying on conventional wisdom culled from the past is foolish. We've never seen an issue's polling move as fast as it has on LGBT issues:
(Nate Silver)
There are so many new dynamics at play in 2012 we've never seen before, both specifically in NC and in the nation. In the past the LGBT community has mostly fought these amendments alone, with coalition partners in the Democratic party and elsewhere considering the issue too hot to touch. But it's a new ball game in 2012 and the North Carolina Democratic party is throwing in to defeat Amendment One. Protect ALL NC Families has built an
impressive coalition of partners committed to helping, including Human Rights Campaign, the NC-NAACP, Libertarian Party of North Carolina, NC Democratic Party, the Alliance of Baptists, ACLU, Equality NC and many more.
And the conventional wisdom was that marriage equality repeal would pass the New Hampshire house last week.
Instead, last Wednesday 119 Republicans were among the over 200 legislators who voted to affirm LGBT Granite staters' freedom to marry.
Honestly, even the savviest, most intimately involved equality advocates didn't see that historic vote coming. That vote shocked even the most starry-eyed optimistic among us.
It's the wins that no one thinks are possible that really move the overton window and really change the conversation in new and exciting ways.
I've given to the campaign (twice actually).
If you can spare even a little, that would be awesome. As I post this, they have collected $7,500 of their $25,000 day's goal, through postings at Blue NC, Americablog, Towleroad, The Bilerico Project, JoeMyGod, GoodAsYou, Courage Campaign and many others. Let's demonstrate a little Netroots might, $5, $10, $20 a pop.
Help the message go viral
Even if times are too tight, your social network is a valuable resource. You can rec this diary (it will not be going to the front page queue). Also please utilize Facebook, Twitter and to spread the word that today's the day to rally behind North Carolina. Your network, your friends and your friends' friends may be a little more flush than you are yourself.
• On the web
• On Facebook
• On Twitter
The Twitter hashtag is #firstinfight, because whether we like it or not, how the vote goes down in North Carolina on May 8 will set the tone for the ballot fights in Minnesota, Maine, Washington and Maryland six months later. Do we want approach those from a position of strength, or defeat? Let's show the National Organization for Marriage we are going to play to win, everywhere.
Note: This diary will not be queued to the front page, so if you think people should see it, please recommend it.
PS: My birthday is Wednesday, in lieu of gifts, you can support this money bomb effort. Yeah, I'm playing the birthday card.
Breaking update: Last week the John Locke Foundation stirred up a firestorm by publishing a disgusting and racist cartoon of President Obama in an editorial supporting the amendment. The think tank apologized and the blogger was fired.
Today President of the John Lock Foundation John Hood revisits with another mea culpa published in the Carolina Jounal
I was horrified, outraged, and very sorry that I hadn’t seen it much earlier. The image was immediately taken down, but the damage was done. Whatever Tara’s intentions may have been, we simply don’t publish or condone that kind of thing. But embarrassment isn’t the only damage I mean. As I wrote the next morning:
The political discourse in our state and nation has grown increasingly coarse, unnecessarily personal, and destructively vitriolic. This is the kind of episode that can only make the situation worse. We should be able to disagree about controversial issues without it coming to this.
And Hood adds his own opposition to Amendment one to the conversation:
I think amending North Carolina’s constitution to forbid gay and lesbian couples from receiving any future legal recognition, including civil unions, is unwise and unfair. In my opinion the real threat to marriage is not the prospect of gay people getting hitched. It is the reality of straight people too quickly resorting to divorce, or never getting hitched in the first place.
These amendment battles bring out the worst in everyone. And it's a shame the Republican party thought this was a good time to have this fight.
But it seems everyday bad news breaks for our opponents.