High turnover in the General Assembly is not unusual in a year after legislative districts are redrawn. Many lawmakers who realize they are facing long odds of being reelected often choose to retire or run for another office.

The majority party that draws the maps not only tries to maximize the number of districts for its own candidates, it often also forces the issue by double-bunking incumbents of the minority party in the same district.

Democrats played that gerrymander game for years and Republicans played it in 2011 (ignoring their previous calls for an independent redistricting process), but there’s something different happening this time.

Democratic legislators were clearly targeted, as you’d expect in a partisan district plan, but Republican legislative leaders seemed especially eager to target Democratic women in the General Assembly for defeat.

House Democrats Pricey Harrison and Maggie Jeffus were put into the same district in Guilford County. So were Rep. Susan Fisher and Rep. Patsy Keever in Asheville.

Democrat Jennifer Weiss was moved into a neighboring Republican House district in Wake County when a new district with no incumbent was drawn next door.

Veteran Democratic Senator Linda Garrou was double-bunked in a Republican district in Winston-Salem with powerful Republican Senator Pete Brunstetter.

Six women Democratic legislators have so far publicly announced they are not seeking reelection and others may announce soon.

Republican leaders don’t seem to want strong Democratic women in the General Assembly.

And the maps follow a session where the legislature approved one of the most extreme anti-choice laws in the country that would force 13-year-old rape victims who are pregnant to view an ultrasound before accessing abortion services.

Republican Larry Pittman, appointed to the House in October to replace Rep. Jeff Barnhart, recently sent an email to all legislators calling for the execution of doctors who perform abortions.

The General Assembly also voted to cut off all public funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates.

And it’s not just reproductive rights that were attacked. The News & Observer reported last weekend that state budget cuts and layoffs disproportionately affected women and people of color.

The majority of teachers and teacher assistants fired by the Republican budget were women and many of the cuts to Medicaid and other human services primarily affect women and families.

The Republican legislative leaders deny it all of course. The denials normally come from the top staff members for House Speaker Thom Tillis, Chief of Staff Charles Thomas, spokesman Jordan Shaw, and Legal Counsel Jason Kay, all white males.

Then there are the legislative leadership teams assembled by Tillis and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger. Key budget chairs Rep. Harold Brubaker, Rep. Jim Crawford, Rep. Nelson Dollar in the House and Sen. Richard Stevens, Sen. Pete Brunstetter, and Sen. Neal Hunt in the Senate are all white males too.

Same for Majority Leader Paul Stam, Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, Speaker Pro Tem Dale Folwell, Deputy Senate President Pro Tem Harris Blake, and even the chairs of the powerful Rules Committees, Tim Moore and Stephen LaRoque in the House and Tom Apodaca in the Senate.

Not a woman among them. Apparently the legislative leadership is not too thrilled with Republican women either.

It’s definitely more than a coincidence.

Republican leaders in North Carolina have a problem. People are beginning to understand that dismantling public education is an important part of their agenda.

And that is not a popular position. People still believe in public schools, despite years of misleading but well-funded attacks on them by the think tanks on the Right in Raleigh and Washington.

The General Assembly has provided ample evidence of the disdain for public education this session. The budget fired teachers and teacher assistants, slashed funding for textbooks and supplies and locked thousands of at-risk kids out of nationally recognized preschool programs.

Funding for mentoring and professional development for teachers was drastically cut. Support for the N.C. Teaching Fellows was abolished.

The overall cuts dropped North Carolina to 49th in the nation in per pupil spending. Funding for public schools as a percentage of the state’s General Fund is the lowest in more than 40 years.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger responded to criticism of the budget last summer by claiming that Republicans reformed education.

But disinvesting in education is not reform. It is a damaging blow to a system already struggling with a shortage of resources that makes it difficult for teachers to do their jobs.

And while it’s tough for Republicans to dance around their disinvestment in schools, that’s not their only problem in their appeal to voters.

They just don’t want to cut funding, they want to destroy traditional public education. And that’s not hyperbole.

House Speaker Thom Tillis confirmed it at a recent town hall in Asheboro. Here’s how Tillis responded to a question about teachers and public schools.

“I understand that Majority Leader Stam has said that his goal would be to ultimately eliminate public schools and I categorically disagree with that for a variety of reasons. Right now with him being Majority Leader and me being Speaker, I like my chances.”

Bizarre as it is, that’s Tillis actually confirming that the elected Majority Leader of the Republican House wants to eliminate public schools.

Stam introduced a voucher scheme last year that he promises to revisit next session.

And Tillis has more than Stam to explain. The Republican majorities in the House and Senate not only lifted the cap on charter schools, they voted to allow for-profit companies to set up virtual charters in North Carolina.

The Cabarrus County Board of Education recently voted to approve a virtual charter school run by K-12, Inc. An audit of K-12’s virtual charter in Colorado found the state paid $800,000 to the company for students who never enrolled or lived out of state.

That’s a funny way to show support for traditional public schools, to give taxpayer money to for-profit corporations to educate kids online with little or no accountability.

Republicans don’t really seem to have any second thoughts about their deep cuts to education or giving public school money to private corporations. It’s more than a plan, it’s fulfilling a deeply held philosophy.

Their only worry is that the public figures out what they are doing. That’s why you can expect more disclaimers and flowery speeches from Tillis and his colleagues about much they really do support public schools.

But nobody’s buying it. Their record is disturbingly clear.

14—number of days since Cabarrus County Board of Education voted 5-2 to approve a proposal by for-profit company K-12, Inc. to operate a virtual charter school. (“Virtual Charter Academy gains initial approval,” Concord Independent Tribune, January 24, 2012)

2,750—number of students in North Carolina that K-12 Inc. projects serving in the first year after it receives final approval from the State Board of Education to set up its virtual charter school in the state (“Questionable company targets NC for virtual charter school,” N.C. Policy Watch Investigates, December 16, 2011)

18 million—amount in dollars the company would receive in state and local taxpayer funding in its first year of operation (Ibid)

800,000—amount in dollars that K-12, Inc. received from the State of Colorado for students that were never enrolled in the virtual school, or who lived outside Colorado (Ibid)

250—number of students managed by some teachers at K-12 virtual charter schools (“Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools,” New York Times, December 12, 2011)

79—number of online public schools run by for-profit educational management companies across the country (Ibid)

94,000—number of students enrolled nationally in online public schools run by K-12, Inc. (Ibid)

26.5 million—amount in dollars spent on advertising by K-12, Inc. in 2010 (Ibid)

55—number of days missed by one student at K-12, Inc. school who remains on her school’s roster (Ibid)

42—percent of students enrolled in K-12, Inc. school in Pennsylvania who performed at grade level on math tests (Ibid)

75—percent of students statewide in Pennsylvania who performed at grade level on math tests (Ibid)

52— percent of students enrolled in K-12, Inc. school in Pennsylvania who performed at grade level on reading tests (Ibid)

72— percent of students statewide in Pennsylvania who performed at grade level on reading tests (Ibid)

193 million—amount in dollars of revenue reported in the last quarter by K-12, Inc. (“Virtual Charter School Looks To Cabarrus, Seeks BOE Partnership,” WFAE-FM, January 23, 2012)

43—percentage increase in revenue for K-12, Inc. over the same period last year. (Ibid)

5 million—amount in dollars of 2011 compensation for K-12, Inc. CEO Ron Packard (“Questionable company targets NC for virtual charter school,” N.C. Policy Watch Investigates, December 16, 2011)

7—number of registered lobbyists in North Carolina for K-12, Inc. (Ibid)

Hold off on measuring those drapes

Thursday morning’s news that Erskine Bowles would not seek the Democratic nomination for governor sent many Republicans and right-wing pundits into a frenzy of jubilation.

They were convinced that only Bowles could keep former Charlotte mayor and traditional conservative turned Tea Partier Pat McCrory out of the Governor’s Mansion.

Now with Bowles out of the way, they are already thinking of all the things they can do with a McCrory Administration to rubber stamp the extremist agenda of the Republican General Assembly.

There are reasons that McCrory is the overwhelming favorite. He has two million dollars in the bank. He has spent virtually every day since November 2008 running for governor, much of it cozying up to Americans for the Prosperous and other groups on the Tea Party Right.

But it’s a little early for McCrory to start practicing the waltz for his inaugural ball.

Tom Jensen with Public Policy Polling had several reasons why at an NC Policy Watch luncheon Thursday.

One is that the state is evenly divided on which party should control the governor’s office. The generic ballot shows that 46 percent of voters would prefer a Democrat and 45 percent want a Republican.

And while McCrory is clearly the most popular politician in the state at the moment, when people find out that he supported the budget passed by the Republican General Assembly, his popularity falls and many voters, especially independents, say they are far less likely to support him.

Only 16 percent of the state’s voters approve of the Republicans in the legislature. House Speaker Thom Tillis may think the “liberal media” is his biggest problem, but it turns out most voters don’t like the far-right crusade that Tillis is leading in Raleigh.

And finally, Jensen points out that at this time four years ago, Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole was a popular politician too, and held a 17 point lead over her challenger, then state Senator Kay Hagan, who was not well-known statewide.

That means this is likely to be a close race regardless of who the Democrats nominate to run against McCrory, Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton, former Congressman Bobby Etheridge, Rep. Bill Faison, or a candidate who hasn’t entered the race yet.

Dismantler Stam says he is not dismantling

House Majority Leader Paul Stam told the News & Observer this week “there is no attempt to dismantle or destroy” public schools. He only wants to give parents options.

That’s an odd name for it.

Stam and his Republican colleagues not only fired teachers and teacher assistants in the budget they approved, they made deep cuts across the board in public education, including reducing funds for textbooks and classroom supplies.

They also abolished funding for the N.C. Teaching Fellows program, slashed teacher mentoring programs, and eliminated several thousand slots in the state’s preschool program for at-risk four-year-olds.

They voted to allow private for-profit companies to use taxpayer money to work with high school dropouts and they passed legislation to give tax credits to parents who enroll their children with disabilities in private schools.

Then there is the decision by lawmakers to lift the cap on the number of charter schools and even allow for profit companies to establish virtual charters in the state. Several proposals for new charter schools would also turn over day to day operations to private companies.

Stam said early last year that his dream was that every school would be a charter school and introduced voucher legislation in the House last year that he has promised to revisit in the next session.

It is impossible to view all that as anything but an effort to dismantle the current system of public schools in North Carolina.

Stam ought to at least own up to it.

From the fringe

This week’s From the Fringe again features George Leef from the Pope Center to Dismantle Public Higher Education.

Leef is promoting an article lamenting the growth of the food stamp program and says the program “should never have been started.”

He doesn’t both to explain how millions of people who have been laid off are supposed to find enough food, but that’s not his problem.

He just wants to rail against government, whether it prevents people from starving or not.

Speculation about likely Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor is dominating Raleigh’s political world these days. It is also serving as reminder of a major problem that persists in our political system, known as the wealth primary.

Most of the stories about potential candidates mention money prominently, often before anything else, how much the candidate has raised or how able they are to finance their campaign with their personal wealth.

The fact that former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory has $2 million in his campaign account is described as evidence of his frontrunner status. Money equals credibility in the political process.

Candidates without wealth or access to it simply are not taken seriously by the political establishment. They are weeded out of the process, regardless of their ideas.

That means if you want to run for public office and are not a millionaire or don’t have a lot of wealthy friends, you turn to the traditional sources of campaign money, political action committees, frequent donors, and other special interests with a direct and often financial stake in the decisions you make after you are elected.

It is not a partisan phenomenon. The current system forces candidates in both parties to chase private money that comes with strings attached.

It’s no wonder the public is cynical about politics. You as a voter or constituent do not matter nearly as much to your elected official as the person who holds a $100,000 fundraiser in their living room.

That doesn’t mean all politicians are for sale. It means our system is broken and that money means more than ideas.

It almost seems like a quaint notion to complain about that in this era of legalized corporate contributions, super PACS, 527s and all the other permutations of big money machines that infect our elections in the wake of the Citizens United Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many political insiders scoff when advocates raise objections to the auctions dressed up as elections every two or four years.

But none of us were taught in school that you must have access to wealth to fully participate in a democracy or that people with the most money usually win elections. But that’s reality now in North Carolina and across the country.

There are other ways to finance elections. The one that makes the most sense is still public financing, where candidates who demonstrate their credibility with signatures or a significant number of small contributions receive public money to run their campaigns.

Most politicians and think- tanks on the Right, funded by wealthy special interests, rail against the clean source of money that public financing provides as “welfare for politicians.” They apparently want elected officials beholden to people who contribute and raise money for their campaigns, not to the voters.

Republicans in the General Assembly have defunded North Carolina’s public financing program for Council of State elections and ended a pilot program for elections at the local level.

For years folks on the Right have responded to questions about the obvious problems in the current campaign finance system by saying that full and immediate disclosure of contributions is the answer, that voters deserve to know where a candidate’s funding is coming from and can make their decisions on how to vote accordingly.

But the Citizens United decision changed that. It not only allowed corporations to spend money influencing elections, but also made it possible for people to give money anonymously to groups that pay for commercials against candidates for office.

Efforts in Raleigh and Washington to require disclosure of those contributions were bottled up by Republicans, the folks who used to be so committed to transparency.

The only thing they like better than special interest money is secret special interest money.

Call me quaint if you want, but democracy is not supposed to work this way.

Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory was making the rounds at television stations across the state in the last few days leading up to his formal announcement for governor on Tuesday.

McCrory’s “one-on-one” interviews with news anchors not only provided a preview of his campaign kickoff but also a sense of the themes he plans to use in his second bid for governor.

The only surprise was how simplistic everything seems in McCrory’s world. The answers to all of our problems can be found in a few carefully crafted focus group talking points.

State government and the state’s economy are both broken and he plans to fix them. Public schools aren’t working either and we shouldn’t spend any more money until we fix those too. Economic development policy—you guess it, it’s broken.

It’s a wonder the state hasn’t simply fallen into the ocean.

McCrory didn’t offer any specifics about all the fixing he plans to do in Raleigh, but he’s a reformer. Just ask him.

And if you are wondering how his campaign strategy changed with the news last week that Governor Bev Perdue is not running for reelection, it hasn’t. He is running against her anyway, repeatedly promising to change the Perdue/Easley culture in Raleigh, whatever that is.

He is also against Perdue’s proposal to raise the state sales tax to restore some of the Republican General Assembly’s deep cuts to education.

Schools, like the rest of state government, need to do more with less, to quote another McCrory cliché. That will come as a surprise to many teachers and principals who are already doing all they can with far less then they need.

It also might be tough for those at-risk four year olds locked out of early childhood programs by McCrory’s pals in the legislative leadership, but those kids need to do more with less too. Same for folks with mental illness or a disability, toughen up, less is more.

That’s the way the private sector does it, as McCrory reminded his interviewers again and again.

You can’t blame this week’s entire cliché-fest on McCrory. The anchors were his willing accomplices in saying virtually nothing, asking broad questions and never following up. And those were the good ones.

One anchor asked McCrory, “Why is it that some Democrats and even some Republicans have a tough time pulling away from the public trough?”

Quite a probing question from the liberal media that House Speaker Thom Tillis keeps complaining about.

McCrory says he wants to turn the state around, but it’s already careening wildly to the right, thanks to Tillis, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, and the rest of the folks running the General Assembly that McCrory likes to praise.

Does that mean he agrees with their extremist agenda?

Does he think 13-year-old rape victims who become pregnant should be forced to look at an ultrasound before accessing abortion services?

Does he believe that victims of crime should have fewer services available to them? That no more scholarships should be provided for bright high school students who want to be teachers?

Does he think that the state constitution should ban local governments from providing benefits to same-sex partners of their employees? How about allowing people to carry concealed handguns in parks?

Would he join with Tillis and the House majority and allow consumer finance companies to jack up the interest rates on emergency loans even though the commander of every military base in North Carolina is trying to stop it?

Those are a few of the questions McCrory needs to answer. There are plenty more and none of them have to do with a trough.

As for the culture in Raleigh, Governor Perdue is not running and Mike Easley left office in 2008.

The Tillis/Berger extremist crowd is now in charge. Voters need to know if McCrory is with them.

10—number of counties in North Carolina that had poverty rates of 20 percent or more every year from 1970 to 2000 (“The Legacy of Hardship; Persistent Poverty in North Carolina, N.C. Budget and Tax Center, January 2012)

9—number of counties in North Carolina with persistent poverty that have housing stress, with 30 percent or more of its households having a lack of complete plumbing, a lack of complete kitchen, having more than person per room or paying 30 percent or more of income for housing costs (Ibid)

5.6—average number of primary care physicians per 10,000 people in 10 counties with persistent poverty (Ibid)

9.4—state average number of primary care physicians per 10,000 people (Ibid)

9—number of 10 counties with persistent poverty with life expectancy below state average of 77.3 years (Ibid)

8—number of 10 counties with persistent poverty with unemployment rates above state rate of 10 percent in November 2011 (Ibid)

82—amount in dollars earned by African-American workers in the Black Belt (a crescent of economically-stressed communities that stretches to Louisiana) for every 100 dollars earned by African-American workers in the South not in the Black Belt (Ibid)

80—amount in dollars earned by African-American workers in the Black Belt (a crescent of economically-stressed communities that stretched to Louisiana) for every 100 dollars earned by non-Southern African-American workers (Ibid)

40—percentage greater, as a share of their income, that low and moderate income households pay in state and local taxes than the wealthiest one-percent of wage earners (“Strengthen the State Earned Income Tax Credit: Support North Carolina’s Working Families and the Economic Recovery,” N.C. Budget and Tax Center.”)

5.4 million—number of Americans lifted out of poverty by EITC in 2010 (Ibid)

880,000—number of households in North Carolina that claimed the state EITC in 2009 (Ibid)

100 million—amount in dollars that the state EITC put into the pockets of low-income families in North Carolina in 2009 (Ibid)

113—amount in dollars of the average value of the state EITC to families claiming the credit in 2009 (Ibid)

25—number of years since President Ronald Reagan called the federal EITC “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress.” (Ibid)

The shock of Governor Bev Perdue’s announcement Thursday that she will not seek reelection is still reverberating in the political world from Raleigh to Charlotte to Washington.

Pundits are busily speculating not only about who will replace Perdue as the Democratic candidate for governor, but what effect her decision will have on President Obama’s chances in North Carolina and the efforts to defeat the marriage discrimination amendment on the ballot in May.

Both are probably improved.

But when the shock wears off, there’s another major political impact of Perdue’s decision to consider. The biggest loser in the shakeup may be the presumptive Republican nominee for governor, former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory.

That’s not because it was a foregone conclusion that McCrory would have defeated Perdue in their rematch in November. Perdue’s sputtering approval numbers and polls showing McCrory with a double digit lead clearly established him as the favorite, but both camps expected the race to tighten as Perdue and other Democrats began focusing directly on McCrory and the Obama machine cranked up its operations.

But McCrory’s entire campaign just changed, whether he wants to admit it or not. He has spent almost every day since November 2008 running against Perdue specifically, constantly referring to her by name in speeches and media appearances.

No doubt his campaign strategists had already mapped out the plan to attack Perdue, mostly likely by blaming her for everything that has gone wrong in the state in the last three years—whether it is actually her fault or not—and for her proposal to raise taxes to fund education, though they usually leave out the part about where the revenue would go.

McCrory has also tried to make Perdue’s leadership an issue, at least his distorted presentation of it, trying to exploit the anti-incumbency fever that always exists in times of economic anxiety.

Almost all those tactics are gone now for McCrory. And instead of spending their time defending a beleaguered incumbent governor who had the misfortune of taking over in the worst economic crisis in 75 years, the Democrats are now likely to have a spirited primary that could energize the base just as the Obama campaign kicks into full gear in the summer.

McCrory now is not sure who is running against in the fall and each of the potential candidates present different challenges.

There’s former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, Rep. Bill Faison, former State Treasurer Richard Moore and several more.

Just the discussion of possible candidates may energize Democrats by reminding them that they have a deep bench, whether the people mentioned are interested or not, folks like Attorney General Roy Cooper, former House Speaker and current Senator Dan Blue, Congressman Brad Miller, State Treasurer Janet Cowell, Senator Josh Stein, Representative Rick Glazier and others.

None of McCrory’s opponents were running the state for the last four years and with the exception of Faison, none of the most likely candidates were even in the General Assembly.

In many ways, McCrory may now be the candidate who has to defend his ties to an unpopular legislature, with his lavish praise for House Speaker Thom Tillis and the Republican majority and its extremist agenda that is far outside the mainstream of North Carolina.

None of this should be interpreted as a slap at Governor Perdue and attempts to define her political legacy are premature.

She deserves a lot of credit for steadying North Carolina during extremely difficult times and for standing up to the far-right leadership of the General Assembly in the last year, drawing a sharp contrast for the state.

She also has another year in office to work on economic development and to fight to restore some of the deep cuts to education, early childhood, and human services made by the General Assembly. She can now concentrate on those issues and leave the fundraising and campaigning to someone else.

There’s plenty of time in the next few weeks for pundits to weigh the advantages of potential candidates and the specific challenges they face, though it’s hard to imagine that Erskine Bowles is not the person the Republicans are most worried will enter the race.

What is certain now is that McCrory’s political world is upside down. The one thing he was sure of has changed.

Republican legislative leaders must be awfully worried about Governor Bev Perdue’s proposal to raise the sales tax 3/4 of a penny to restore some of the devastating budget cuts to public schools that lawmakers made last year.

That’s the only plausible explanation for their puzzling statements and odd behavior in the last few days.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger held a news conference Tuesday to challenge Perdue to a public debate about her tax plan. That came just a few days after Berger called the proposal dead on arrival at the General Assembly.

That doesn’t sound much like somebody interested in an actual debate.

It sounds like somebody grasping for a publicity stunt to parrot his tired anti-tax talking points to avoid talking about the damage their budget has caused in classrooms across the state.

Thanks to the cuts that Berger and his Republican colleagues made, thousands of teachers and teacher assistants have been fired, classes are larger, students don’t have textbooks, classrooms are short of supplies, and at-risk four-year-olds are being turned away from vital preschool programs.

Those are the facts, no matter how hard the right-wing think tanks try to deny it.

No wonder Berger wants to frame this as a tax issue. He would rather not talk about education.

Not to be outdone, House Speaker Thom Tillis chimed in and said he wanted to debate Perdue too. Of course he does.

Then there is House Majority Leader Paul Stam, who called Perdue’s proposal a political move because he said she knew it had no chance of passing.

That’s an odd claim, especially from Stam, who spent the last ten years proposing things he knew would not pass.

Here’s another possibility for Stam to consider. Maybe Perdue actually believes that the Republican budget cuts are hurting public schools and she wants to reinstate part of the 2009 sales tax increase to address them.

Missing from much of the coverage about this whole episode is some perspective on what Republican legislative leaders really think about public schools.

Stam for example, wants to privatize them. That’s not speculation. He introduced legislation for a voucher scheme this session and said his dream is that every school is a charter.

The budget the Republicans approved included a provision that allows virtual charter schools and this week the Cabarrus County Board of Education voted to partner with K-12, Inc., a company with a questionable record that operates virtual charter schools across the country.

An audit into the company’s practices in Colorado found the company was receiving money from the state for students who did not live in Colorado or were never even enrolled.

Then there are the layoffs and budget cuts that dropped North Carolina to 49th in the country in per-pupil spending.

The budget also abolished funding for the N.C. Teaching Fellows, a nationally recognized program that provides college scholarships for students who promise to spend at least four years teaching.

Last fall Tillis said lawmakers may have made a mistake by defunding the program, but he has since backed off that statement and there has been no effort to revisit the decision.

That’s their record on education and the public is catching on. Polls already show that voters support increasing the sales tax to increasing funding for public schools.

Republicans ought to be worried.

The folks who want to write discrimination into the state constitution formerly kicked off their campaign of intolerance this week, launching the ridiculously named “Vote for Marriage NC” coalition.

The distortions and misleading rhetoric weren’t limited to the name.

Rev. Mark Harris, President of the N.C Baptists, said in a statement that “the marriage amendment is simple and straight-forward. It’s about preserving marriage as we’ve always known it and making sure that activist judges can’t redefine it in the future.”

The marriage discrimination amendment is a lot of things, but simple and straight-forward are not among them.

It not only bans same-sex marriage, which is already illegal in North Carolina, its broad sweeping language would strip benefits from partners of same-sex workers, weaken domestic violence protections, and threaten individuals’ rights in wills and trusts.

It would affect thousands of unmarried couples, gay and straight, and could wreak havoc with dozens of state laws and regulations.

As for preserving marriage as “we’ve always known it,” you have to wonder if folks like Rev. Harris were disappointed when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1967 that the ban on interracial marriage was unconstitutional.

That certainly changed marriage the way people in southern states had always known it.

Even the absurd claim about activist judges doesn’t make any sense. Judges in North Carolina state courts have shown no inclination to overturn the law.

Federal courts seem the far more likely venue and a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to give gay men and lesbians the same rights as everybody else would trump North Carolina’s amendment anyway.

Every part of Harris’ statement is nonsense, which seems fitting for an organization that wants to deny people the right to get married while calling itself the Vote for Marriage coalition.

This week’s disingenuous and offensive claims are only just the beginning if the lessons from amendment fights in other states and the debate about in the General Assembly are any indication.

Pandering Republican legislators seemed perfectly comfortable speaking at rallies and events where religious bigots bellowed that gay people are an abomination and are going to hell and in one case even clanged two padlocks together in a bizarre anatomy lesson.

Expect more stunts, fear-mongering and hate speech as the May vote on the amendment approaches. Most of it won’t be on official websites or in public proclamations from the well-funded coalition of state and national fundamentalists.

They are likely to stick to the less-confrontational, though thoroughly absurd statements like the one from Rev. Harris to make their case. The scary stuff will be behind the scenes, in fliers and mailers and whisper campaigns.

The pro-discrimination forces surely know that the more people in North Carolina understand the amendment and what it means for people’s lives, the less they like it and the less likely they are to vote for it.

Polls are already showing support for the amendment is slipping.

The Coalition to Protect N.C. Families, a broad group of religious, business, and community leaders opposed to writing discrimination into the constitution, kicked off its campaign last week to educate voters about what the amendment would actually mean for North Carolina—and it is a troubling scenario indeed.

Our state has plenty of real problems, tens of thousands of people out of work, families living in poverty, and schools staggering after massive budget cuts come first to mind.

Demonizing people in the constitution because of who they love doesn’t address any of them. Neither does cutting off health benefits or weakening domestic violence laws.

Supporters of the amendment should at least be honest about it. Despite their name, they are not really for anything in this case, except discrimination and the opportunity to write their narrow-minded agenda into our state constitution.

Let’s hope the momentum to defeat this narrow-minded crusade continues to grow and that voters make it clear all North Carolina families deserve our respect and support.