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When I ran for Raleigh mayor, I was invited to attend a meeting of a Triangle business group that I didn’t know.  I learned it was an association of homosexual business and professional people.

It was 1993, not so long ago.  Yet, Jesse Helms was very much in the U.S. Senate and President Clinton had been roundly denounced for his promise to allow homosexuals in the military.

It was still a time when links to homosexual groups, depending on your opponent, could be political poison.  I was well aware of that.

 As the meeting date neared, I had what is called in the South a “come to Jesus meeting”—with myself.
I thought of all the homosexual and lesbian friends I had.  Some were openly gay and some not so much.  My friends were creative, intelligent, compassionate, and very capable.  Would I turn my back on them?

I went to the meeting, feeling like I would see my visit in a 30-second attack ad afterwards.  The meeting was in the old Ballentine Cafeteria’s, big downstairs meeting room.  It was packed.

I was amazed that so many people had openly declared their sexuality in the capital city of North Carolina.  My short remarks were generously applauded and the guest speaker who followed skewered my opponent.

The meeting for me was exhilarating.  Clearly, even in Raleigh, gay people were standing up for their rights as full and productive members of society.  And here, in the same room where Rotary and Kiwanis and sports clubs met, homosexuality was being recognized not as a deviant mental disease or an unspeakable sin of choice but as a fact of life, like blue eyes and blonde hair.

The world was changing and I, a master of current events, was behind on the news.

All of which is a long introduction to the North Carolina Constitutional Amendment to prohibit homosexual marriage on the May 8 Primary ballot.

There already is state law that bans same sex marriages.  The constitutional amendment is a campaign promise made by Republican legislators and they have made good on that promise.  The legislators believe that a state judge might overturn the law, and the amendment is insurance that doesn’t happen.

It’s unnecessary and does nothing to prevent a federal judge to strike the law down.  The amendment has an odor of spitefulness about it.

But like the state law, which was adopted by a Democratic controlled legislature, the amendment is likely to be approved as well, driven by Bible Belt religious conservatives. 

But I was wrong in 1993 about public attitudes toward homosexuality and behind the times.  So I would be happy to be wrong again.