• from Love = Love

This little film by Mimi Schiffman is a gem. It's about Isak. 12, and his "big happy family." A sister, a dog and two moms. It's also, of course, about Amendment 1. "Love is just when you know you want to be with someone, and a world where everything's right," Isak says.

One of the moms, Tanja Atkins, was our general manager at the Indy for years and is much-missed. I loved this piece a little more when I first saw it on Huffington Post for knowing Tanja and Connie and who they are. But see if you don't love it too.

Great work by Schiffman and, with a credit for art direction, Isak Atkins-Pearcy.

Here's a link to the film on Vimeo.

[Update, Thursday, 2:30 p.m. Running around today, I missed the march but caught some of the preparations at the Bell Tower and the end of the rally at Halifax Mall. Not thousands, but several hundred marched and/or came to the Mall for the speeches. "We cheered extra loud as we went by the Civitas building," Lee Sartain told me. Sartain is running in the Democratic primary for a newly created seat — District 38, there's no incumbent — in the N.C. House of Representatives.

[I've posted some pictures:

What follows is the original post from Tuesday, 3/13:

The ides of Love march organizers predict that thousands will gather in Raleigh on the Ides of March to take a stand against the proposed anti-gay Amendment One. The ides, as we know from our Julius Caesar, fall on March 15. Start point for the march is the Bell Tower at NC State, at 11 a.m. The route is down Hillsborough Street to the Capitol, then over to Halifax Mall, behind the General Assembly building on West Jones Street, where a rally is planned starting at 12 noon.

HonestNC is the event's home office. "Thirty other states have added discrimination to their constitutions," says HonestNC's David Hook. "Show the world that it stops here."

Below, I've posted a short video starring Hook. The image above is taken from the video, fyi.

You can check out HonestNC on their homepage or via the Ides of Love page on Facebook.

Here's the latest from the organizers about the march:

HonestNC, a group of community organizers from N.C. State, will march from the Bell Tower to the State Legislature on Thursday, March 15th at 11 AM to protest the proposed amendment to limit marriage in North Carolina. With expected attendance of several thousand, the city of Raleigh will close down Hillsborough and Morgan Streets to allow the group safe passage to express their view that adding discrimination to the state's founding documents hits right at the heart of our idea of civil unity, and threatens the core legitimacy of our social mores.

The group will gather for a rally at Halifax Mall to show our representatives in the state legislature that citizens of the populace will not stand idly by while civil rights are cut off from a portion of our group. The Grains of Time, an a cappella ensemble from N.C. State will be performing the national anthem and several speakers will take the podium to speak against exclusion and discrimination. As younger members of the community, HonestNC strive to show state voters that we will not engage in generational withholding of civil rights, and that the legislature should provide better leadership in public policy. As citizens, this amendment will not pass.

And the video:

The Coalition to Protect N.C. Families is out with a statement about the new Elon University Poll, which shows a majority of voters in North Carolina opposed to Amendment One, the anti-LGBT amendment to the state constitution on the May 8 primary ballot.

Amendment One would prohibit the state from recognizing gay marriages, civil unions or any other domestic partnership arrangements, whether between gay or straight couples. Only a one-man, one-woman marriage would count.

Oddly, the Elon Poll results are roughly the opposite of the poll taken less than two weeks ago for the J.W. Pope Citivas Institute, the Art Pope-funded conservative organization. Civitas hired a New Jersey polling firm that reported strong support for Amendment One.

The Elon Poll is nonpartisan and unaffiliated with any political group.

(One update/observation: Look at the way Elon asked the question. First, they ask about attitudes toward same-sex marriage and civil unions. Then they ask about the amendment. It's a unbiased question, but it's preceded by a question that causes people to stop and think. If you just ask, as the Civitas poll did, whether people support an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, a majority seem reflexively to say yes.)

From the Coalition:

NEW POLL SHOWS INCREASING OPPOSITION TO AMENDMENT ONE
Majority of North Carolinians Oppose Constitutional Amendment on May
8, 2012 Ballot

Elon, N.C. — A new Elon University Poll released today shows that a
majority of North Carolinians oppose Amendment One, a constitutional
amendment on the May 8, 2012, North Carolina primary ballot that bans
relationship recognitions and threatens protections for the state’s
unmarried couples.

The nonpartisan poll revealed that 54.2% of North Carolinians surveyed
either oppose or strongly oppose “an amendment to the constitution
that would ban same-sex marriage.” Only 37.8% polled were in any way
supportive of Amendment One. The poll also illustrates a dramatic
increase in the category of “strong opposition” to this type of
amendment from only one year ago, with 34% now voicing strong
opposition versus 21.8% in February 2011.

Overall opposition to Amendment One increased even further when North
Carolinians polled were asked whether they opposed an amendment to the
North Carolina constitution “that would prevent civil unions and
domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.” Nearly 57% of North
Carolinians (56.9%) polled opposed or strongly opposed an amendment on
that basis.

“The Elon University poll is a clear sign that North Carolina is
AGAINST Amendment One,” said Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for
Protect All NC Families, the coalition effort to defeat Amendment One.
“The more people learn about this poorly-written amendment and its
unintended consequences, the more they realize it will harm our
children, their families, unmarried women, and seniors.”

The Elon poll did not inquire about Amendment One support or
opposition based on unintended harms to all unmarried couples in North
Carolina, including a permanent ban on domestic partner benefits for
public employees, as well as how it could negatively affect
enforcement of domestic violence laws, child custody agreements and
end-of-life directives. A recent state panel tasked with explaining
Amendment One to voters found that there is significant debate among
legal experts about how the amendment might impact various legal
protections for public and private employee benefits as well as other
harms. The panel ultimately concluded that the state’s court system
would need to determine Amendment One’s lasting consequences.

“While the Elon Poll does not touch on the vast array of known and
potential harms of this type of overreaching legislation—harms that
were a reality in other states—it does mirror the momentum we’ve seen
in our work on the ground throughout the state,” said Kennedy. The
more North Carolinians know about Amendment One, the more support for
it plummets.”