I think it’s important to remember that there are many, many grassroots organizations and group efforts working hard here on the ground to defeat Amendment One, many on their own time and dime, because they feel strongly that we’re all in this together as North Carolinians, each with a role to play in educating voters, bringing people together to discuss the amendment’s harms and getting out the vote.

Chad Nance who is a freelance journalist in Winston-Salem and is covering the election here in NC, recorded the wife of NC Sen. Peter Brunstetter confirming that she believes that Amendment One’s destiny is not only to save marriage, it apparently also has something to do with white power preservation. (!)

The North Carolina NAACP is the only chapter aside from California’s that has come out forcefully against an anti-gay marriage discrimination amendment, and Rev. Dr. William Barber makes it crystal clear why voters in NC need to come out and vote against Amendment One.

In its editorial, the New York Times places the fight to defeat the discriminatory Amendment One in the national spotlight it deserves. At its core, this is about the professional forces of craven bigotry so blinded by their hatred of gay and lesbian couples that they are willing to: 1) attempt to drive wedges between communities of color and the LGBT community, and 2) knowingly fight to pass a measure on the ballot that sweeps in its web of discrimination all sorts of families and children as collateral damage.

When you don’t have any other card to play when it comes to discriminating against LGBTs, out comes the bible. Without fail; it’s been clear from Day One that the people at Vote for Marriage NC could not find a way to make the case to add a measure to the state constitution to “protect marriage” without conflating church and state and preying upon fears and ignorance of voters.

It’s nice to have so many allies from around the country coming out in support of the effort to defeat Amendment One. One such partner is Democracy for America (DFA), a nationwide grassroots PAC with one million members strong. DFA’s chair, Jim Dean, gave a interview to Pam on why DFA is opposing Amendment One.

The deluge of videos opposing Amendment One is quite astonishing — ones produced by the official campaign, and equally impressive are passionate and heartfelt ones done by those outside of the campaign. In just the last day or so, we have had more political figures step up to say why this amendment is wrong for North Carolina.

One of the heartening pieces of news from Public Policy Polling’s latest data: support for the amendment from black voters has dropped from 61/30 to 51/39. PPP: “There is some reason to think a huge upset in two weeks is within the realm of possibility.”

While there is an official campaign to defeat Amendment One out there, we have to recognize that there are many, many people working at the grassroots level, residents of North Carolina putting in countless hours to educate voters on their own time and dime because they feel passionately that this discriminatory amendment is wrong for the state that they call home. They find a niche to effectively counter the anti-gay, anti-logical arguments out there.

In this case, I wanted to spotlight a local effort — responding to op-eds and letters to the editor (LTEs) in our local and regional papers that have been, as you might expect, populated with anti-gay, fear-driven, often religion-based arguments in favor of Amendment One.

Early voting is already under way here in North Carolina, but the Amendment One TV ad wars start up this week as the Protect All NC Families campaign launches their first two tv ads. They will run statewide this week (the pro-amendment forces start theirs as well). You can preview them here and at Pam’s House Blend.