On May 8, North Carolina residents will have an opportunity to vote on a marriage amendment. Numerous articles have been in the paper expressing pros and cons. One Associated Press article on March 21 stated that the Obama administration chastised Liberia’s Nobel Peace Prize winner and president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for Liberia’s law, which criminalizes gay acts. The U.S. State Department is aggressively promoting gay rights. Does this make sense, knowing that AIDS and HIV are a plague in Africa?

Another AP article on March 5 reported a custody battle between two lesbians in Florida for the 8-year-old daughter of a woman who was artificially inseminated. She renounced her homosexuality and has been in hiding since 2009. The court had ordered that her former partner be given custody. The same article reported that a former North Carolina senator, Julia Boseman, is suing for joint custody of a 2-year-old son born to her lesbian spouse. Another article told of parents who were requesting a sex change operation for their child because they believed he was the wrong sex. Is this the kind of future North Carolina wants?

Leading Democratic candidates for North Carolina governor, Walter Dalton, Bob Etheridge and Bill Faison, as well as two hopefuls for lieutenant governor, Linda Coleman and Eric Mansfield, are all against a marriage amendment. What has happened to the Democratic Party? They controlled the legislature until 2010, causing us to be the last state in the Southeast without a marriage amendment. At our last election, state legislators saw no need for an amendment to our constitution, saying that state law already prohibit same-sex marriage. It has been proven in several states that federal judges can overrule state law, such as in Massachusetts. Twenty-nine states have seen this danger, and have passed constitutional marriage amendments banning same-sex marriage.

Voting against a marriage amendment could be devastating for our state – for the morals of our youth by promoting the gay lifestyle, risking the spread of AIDS and HIV, raising health care costs and causing deaths of innocent people from blood transfusions and, most important, bringing God’s wrath on our disobedience.

God loves us all, but he hates sin. Call it what it is – anything that our Holy God would not approve – including lying, cheating, stealing and all kinds of crime.

Homosexuals believe they were born that way. If so, they can be reborn through the power of Jesus Christ. It would be hard to break away sexually from a gay partner after many years, but it has been done to the glory of God, and testimonies attest to that. It takes a strong will and a turn to God for help.

Christians must take a stand against all sin. Vote for the constitutional Marriage Amendment on May 8.

Jean Eason Holding

Rocky Mount