North Carolina's Virginia Foxx and Rev Franklin Graham
Welcome to North Carolina Open Thread For Sunday, June 28th. This is a new weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. We hope this regular platform will give readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight, inspiration and connections as we work on taking back our state from the extreme, money blinded powers that pull the levers here.
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Let's talk. Please follow us below the fold as we talk about North Carolina. For your chuckles, I have included reactions from state Republicans to the historic SCOTUS decisions this week. As a bonus, we have a reaction from our neighbors to the South on the lowering of the Confederate Flag of Shame.
Affordable Care Act
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
“The President’s health care law has been fundamentally flawed from the beginning, causing premiums to skyrocket and forcing millions of hardworking Americans to lose the very same health insurance plans they were promised they could keep. Regardless of the Supreme Court’s ruling today, the President’s health care law is beyond repair and I remain committed to finding and implementing a solution. Both parties need to come together to fix our broken health care system once and for all by making it more affordable, accountable, and patient focused, and giving families more freedom and choice when it comes to making decisions that work best for them.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC-5)
“For the past two years, my email inbox, mailbox and phone lines have been flooded with reports of cancelled health insurance plans, soaring premiums, increased deductibles and frustrated constituents trying to navigate the confusing Washington bureaucracy that is Obamacare. Despite its central promise, the Affordable Care Act has proved to be anything but affordable for many North Carolinians, and today’s Supreme Court decision doesn’t change that fact. Rather than making piecemeal fixes, the best approach to solving the multitude of problems resulting from Obamacare is to unite behind a complete repeal of the law and replace it with solutions that lower costs and empower patients to choose the care that’s right for them.”
Congressman David Rouzer (NC-7)
“The Supreme Court’s decision does not change that Obamacare is a drain on the economy, and millions of Americans continue to see their insurance premiums and deductibles skyrocketing. Obamacare continues to increase healthcare costs while also harming access to quality care – especially for our seniors. I will continue to fight for patient-centered solutions that put individuals and families back in charge of their health care decisions.”
Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (NC-02)
“Justice Scalia’s concluding dissent succinctly summarizes what so many of us are thinking: ‘And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.’ Obamacare is not the right path for the American people, and I remain committed to bringing healthcare back to where it belongs—with a focus on the patient.”
Marriage
Governor Pat McCrory
“Like many North Carolinians, I still believe the definition of marriage should be determined by the states and it should be the union between one man and one woman. However, I took an oath to uphold the constitution which compels me as governor to ensure that North Carolina upholds the rule of law.”
Lt. Governor Dan Forest
“The power grab by a majority of the Supreme Court is a full-on assault on the founding principles of democratic process, federalism, separation of powers, the voice of the people, and judicial restraint. Under these decisions, the rights and responsibilities of the states and the people are gone, and the precedent is set that non-elected judges can play super-legislator on whatever issue they want, however they want, and whenever they want. When our elected officials step over the line, we the people can vote them out of office. When unelected judges step over the line, we are without recourse. No longer does it matter what the citizen-elected legislature says. It matters not what the citizen-elected executives say. All that matters is what a majority of nine people in a courtroom says.”
Jim Campbell, Senior Legal Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom
“The Supreme Court has stripped all Americans of our freedom to debate and decide marriage policy through the democratic process. The freedom to democratically address the most pressing social issues of the day is the heart of liberty. The court took that freedom from the people and overrode the considered judgment of tens of millions of Americans who recently reaffirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The court cast aside the understanding of marriage’s nature and purpose that diverse cultures and faiths across the globe have embraced for millennia.”
Congressman David Rouzer (NC-7)
“While I have great respect for the U.S. Supreme Court as an institution, our Founding Fathers never intended for a few individuals on the bench to override the will and deeply held cultural beliefs of millions of Americans who have expressed their desire to defend traditional marriage by amending their respective state constitutions. Marriage between a man and woman is a very sacred institution and has been the bedrock of every civilized society throughout history. It should be protected and preserved, not redefined, for absolutes are stronger than steel while redefinitions are nothing more than a slippery slope of shifting sand.”
Tami Fitzgerald, Executive Director, N.C. Values Coalition
“Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court will no more settle the issue of gay marriage than Roe v. Wade settled the issue of abortion. Forty years later, the majority of Americans are more pro-life than ever, and I believe that history will prove the arrogance of this Supreme Court’s new illusory definition for marriage. Millions of Americans believe that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman, and it is an improper abuse of power for the Supreme Court to attempt to re-define an institution that it did not invent. This landmark decision will bring peril to family structure and stability and will threaten the religious liberties upon which our country was founded. We must guaranty that North Carolinians whose religious beliefs are violated by this decision will have the continuing freedom to act on their beliefs.”
Franklin Graham
“Long before our government came into existence, marriage was created by the One who created man and woman—Almighty God—and His decisions are not subject to review or revision by any manmade court. God is clear about the definition of marriage in His Holy Word: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
“I pray God will spare America from His judgment, though, by our actions as a nation, we give Him less and less reason to do so.”
Confederate Flag
For this one, I'm just going to leave it at this from our neighbor to the South.
Neo-Confederate Group Mobilizes To Defend Confederate Battle Flag
The Sons of Confederate Veterans will not just stand by passively and watch one of their cherished symbols removed from the South Carolina statehouse grounds. "Our heritage is under serious attack," read a post on the group's Facebook page. The national group held a conference call last night to organize its lobbying efforts in light of what it called "the rapidly changing situation in Columbia, South Carolina," according to another post on its Facebook page.
“I am concerned because this is a mass hysteria on anything Confederate, whether it is South Carolina or Georgia, or I got calls from what’s happening in Washington state and Alabama. It’s all over and it just seems like a feeding frenzy,” Charles Kelly Barrow, the commander in chief of the national Sons of Confederate Veterans organization, told TPM. “It’s wrong and it’s tragic that they’re taking something that happened in South Carolina -- a tragedy -- and people are trying to make political statements.”
Earlier in the week, the South Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans posted a “CALL TO ACTION !!!!!!!!!!!” on its Facebook page, urging members to call their state legislators and lobby against the removal of the flag, which has flown above Confederate monument near the Capitol since 2000.
Thanks for reading, have a great day!