NC Vote Could Turn Against Over Gay Marriage

                                                                        

Raleigh, N.C. -- North Carolina, host of theDemocratic National Convention starting Tuesday, is among the closest of swing states, with polls showing President Obama and Mitt Romney locked in a statistical dead heat for much of the past year.

Four years ago, Obama won by only 14,000 votes out of 4.3 million cast, becoming the first Democrat to take the state since 1976. Repeating that win - and grabbing North Carolina's 15 electoral votes - would make Romney's path to victory a lot tougher. But the state's 9.6 percent unemployment rate is among the nation's highest, and Obama's challenge this year is wrapped in the racial and sexual politics of the Bible Belt.

The Rev. Patrick Wooden, pastor of a 3,000-member conservative congregation here, says Obama crushed his chances to repeat when he declared his support of same-sex marriage in May - the day after North Carolina voters in 93 of the state's 100 counties overwhelmingly approved the state's Amendment 1 banning it.

"I hope as many African Americans as possible are offended by his position," said Wooden, an African American who helped lead the anti-gay marriage campaign and has long opposed Obama. "I hope that even if they don't vote for his opponent, they just leave that part of the ballot empty."

Praying over vote

Many of the congregants in Wooden's Upper Room Church of God In Christ express conflicted feelings with the same phrase offered by Ieisha Hall: "I'm praying on it." The 37-year-old voted for Obama four years ago, in part because "as the mother of three sons, a big part of it for me was the history of" supporting the first black president.

"If God says so," Hall said she will leave her presidential ballot space blank rather than vote for Romney, even though he opposes same-sex marriage. "I know he does, but I just don't believe in Mormonism," Hall said, echoing a sentiment expressed by many congregants.

To win, Obama needs 80 percent of blacks to support him - and 80 percent to turn out, said Michael Munger, a professor of political science at Duke University who knows the state's roiling political turf well; he was the Libertarian Party's candidate for governor in 2008. Even if it only muffles black enthusiasm, "Obama hurt himself" with his same-sex marriage stand, Munger said.

Other analysts argue that Obama's self-described evolving view on gay nuptials will have a minor impact on his chances. The real challenge is deciphering the state's demographics, which change by the hour. When asked to list the state's battlefields, an Obama field organizer ticked off a dozen cities and towns from the Tennessee border to the Atlantic Ocean.

"While there may be people who, in church settings, have issues with same-sex marriage, I have not heard a lot of congregants say they wouldn't support (Obama) because of that," said J. Kameron Carter, an ordained Baptist minister who is a professor of theology and black studies at Duke.

While churchgoing African Americans are part of the core of opposition to same-sex marriage, Carter, who supports Obama, said: "Black churches here are taking a more nuanced approach lately. They are differentiating more between important cultural issues and their political priorities."

Sitting in the student center on the North Carolina State University campus, Alexandria Pitts, a 19-year-old elementary education major who is African American, said, "My religion is Christian, but I'm still going to vote for Obama. My politics and religious beliefs are separate."

Rather, marriage is one of many issues the campaigns are scrapping over in a state which, like four years ago, is expected to be decided by only a few thousand votes. For months, supporters of both campaigns have saturated North Carolina's TV markets with $56 million in campaign ads, and Obama has visited more than a dozen times since taking office.

Changing demographics

But the state looks different than it did four years ago.

Charlotte, which grew faster than any urban area in the nation during the past decade, continues to grow at a 3 percent annual pace as immigrants from more liberal areas move to the largest financial center outside New York.

The number of voting-age African Americans and Latinos, in particular, has grown, and the home of Duke, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State has seen the number of registered, college-age voters boom in four years. Polls show the Medicare reform plan by Romney's running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, is unpopular. And Obama still has a favorable rating while Romney does not.

Yet political observers acknowledge that Obama's campaign, which had the air of a movement four years ago, has lost some of its dazzle. To encourage people to get involved this summer, the campaign offered a ticket to Obama's Thursday night acceptance speech to volunteers who worked nine hours over three shifts for the campaign.

"The novelty has worn off," said the Rev. Philip Cousin, the chairman of a 77-year-old civil rights organization in Durham who organizes Obama volunteers, largely in the state's black churches. He has recruited as many volunteers as four years ago.

"It is always harder to talk about substance," he said. "But with President Obama, we have a lot of positive substance to talk about."

At the state's largest university, 36,000-student North Carolina State, students say they're repeatedly stopped as they cross the Brickyard, a central campus courtyard, by clipboard-toting Obama volunteers asking if they've registered to vote.

"At least four times," said Hailey Lisi, 19, a fashion textile management major who said she would probably vote for Obama.

That kind of grassroots organization helps analysts and partisans explain why Obama is virtually tied with Romney even though the state's unemployment rate is the nation's fifth-highest.

GOP bastion

Despite North Carolina's demographic changes, it is still home to voters who elected GOP Sen. Jesse Helms to five terms. Helms is perhaps best known in the Bay Area for holding up the confirmation of former San Francisco Supervisor Roberta Achtenberg to a Clinton administration position "because she's a damn lesbian."

Redistricting changes - led by a Republican-dominated Legislature - are expected to flip what was a Democratic-dominated congressional delegation into GOP control. Democratic Gov. Betty Perdue was so unpopular that she chose not to run for re-election, eliminating another source of help for Obama. Plus, this is a union-unfriendly, right-to-work state, sapping another source of the president's support. There are 300,000 more registered nonpartisan voters than in 2008, further clouding the picture.

"While Obama may have some demographic advantages here, he doesn't have a good story to tell," said Dallas Woodhouse, director of the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group founded by the billionaire industrialist David Koch. "But Romney hasn't won the state yet. He has to come here and win it."

by Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @joegarofoli

                                                                             

They claim everyone gay or straight is “free” to live as they “choose.” But not if they choose to get married. Or enter into a civil union or domestic partnership. Or choose to give their children health insurance. Or choose to protect themselves from domestic violence. Those freedoms and choices are apparently reserved for an overclass. And they say “nobody has the right to redefine marriage.” And then they proceed to point out that 30 other states have redefined marriage as the union between a man and a woman. If marriage is what they say it is, I’m not sure why 30 states and North Carolina really need to make extra sure marriage is what they say it is. And I’m not really sure why this current definition is better than the historic one where women were property and interracial marriage was banned. This seems like an attempt to impose a very modern redefinition of marriage in the state constitution and call it the definition God really intended.

So, all in all, a confusing and ahistorical ad. I’m not even sure they got the Biblical part of this right: there is no mention of banning gay people from getting married in the Bible. And Jesus doesn’t mention gays at all.   

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