It's 9:37 pm Monday evening. This time tomorrow night in North Carolina, we will know a little more about who we are as a state. When the votes are counted for and against the constitutional amendment on the ballot, we will have a little snapshot we didn't have before.
Sitting here tonight, I have no idea how this vote is going to go. I worked the early voting polls on several different days, and my experience was about 80% positive. I knew I was working in something of a bubble at the Board of Elections site in downtown Raleigh. But I learned tonight from other poll workers it was more of a bubble than I thought.
We had gathered at the home of a local organizer, picking up flyers and balloons for tomorrow, and the mood was excited and cheerful, but we did talk about how unclear the results are now. And others described what they had run into at early voting sites in outlying areas.
In Wake Forest, one volunteer had been lectured and insulted throughout his whole two hour shift. In Johnston County, a woman there described being yelled at and even had trash thrown at her. They said it was rough going and discouraging. But at the same time, it's so clear that more and more people are paying attention to this issue and are disgusted by the amendment.
We parted with plans to meet there tomorrow night, and it will be a party either way. If the amendment passes, it will just have to be a rally to plan next steps.
North Carolina is my home, and I love it, warts and all. We may find out tomorrow that we have a hateful streak that runs a little deeper than we knew. But we also saw so many people whose awareness of this issue has grown by leaps and bounds.
One thing that I know tonight, before we have any idea what the returns will tell us, is that it is only a matter of time before we won't have to fight this fight anymore. Gay marriage will be legal in North Carolina within a few years. If the amendment is defeated, we still have to overturn the law itself. If it is passed, we will just have to start from scratch and get it overturned. No matter what, if supporters of this amendment think this question will be answered with finality tomorrow night, they have a lot to learn about their fellow North Carolinians.
We had gathered at the home of a local organizer, picking up flyers and balloons for tomorrow, and the mood was excited and cheerful, but we did talk about how unclear the results are now. And others described what they had run into at early voting sites in outlying areas.
In Wake Forest, one volunteer had been lectured and insulted throughout his whole two hour shift. In Johnston County, a woman there described being yelled at and even had trash thrown at her. They said it was rough going and discouraging. But at the same time, it's so clear that more and more people are paying attention to this issue and are disgusted by the amendment.
We parted with plans to meet there tomorrow night, and it will be a party either way. If the amendment passes, it will just have to be a rally to plan next steps.
North Carolina is my home, and I love it, warts and all. We may find out tomorrow that we have a hateful streak that runs a little deeper than we knew. But we also saw so many people whose awareness of this issue has grown by leaps and bounds.
One thing that I know tonight, before we have any idea what the returns will tell us, is that it is only a matter of time before we won't have to fight this fight anymore. Gay marriage will be legal in North Carolina within a few years. If the amendment is defeated, we still have to overturn the law itself. If it is passed, we will just have to start from scratch and get it overturned. No matter what, if supporters of this amendment think this question will be answered with finality tomorrow night, they have a lot to learn about their fellow North Carolinians.
