It’s one thing to have a terrible roll of the health dice, it’s quite another to have your life profoundly affected by bigoted, scared legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly who thought putting my civil rights on the ballot was a good idea for our state. Here are my thoughts in video.

It’s a big week in the Bull City as the campaign to defeat the marriage discrimination amendment brings together multiple coalitions to educate voters and students about the harms of the amendment on our state on Friday. LGBTs and allies at historic black institution North Carolina Central University as well as Duke University are playing a huge role in Race to the Ballot’s “Running of the Bulls”.

These guys are a regular Dear Abby column for the misguided homosexual, aren’t they? Peter LaBarbera has made a career out of playing the pious, family-focused anti-gay activist at the grade Z level, all while trolling going “undercover” to research what he believes is mainstream gay society at events like International Mr. Leather, and S&M culture events that plenty of heterosexuals also attend (his skills of observation must be pretty weak).

Tami Fitzgerald is Executive Director of the so-called North Carolina Values Coalition founded in 2011 to politic in favor of the proposed anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution. She claims “legalizing gay marriage would take away the right of Christian psychologists to refuse treatment on the basis of their religious beliefs,” but can’t explain why.

The Charlotte Observer has a puff piece on the senior minister at uptown Charlotte’s First Baptist Church, who will be a well-known advocate for the passage of the anti-gay marriage discrimination amendment that will go before voters on May 8.

The vote on the amendment is May 8, 2012, so there is not a lot of time to educate voters around the state about just how extreme this ballot initiative is. Public Policy Polling’s latest data shows just how confused many North Carolinians are about the scope of the effect if this is passed. Most North Carolinians are fair-minded and want legal recognition for same-sex relationships…but some of these voters are still in favor of the amendment.

The Raleigh City Council passed a resolution Tuesday opposing a proposed constitutional amendment appearing on the state’s primary ballot. In a 6-2 vote, new Mayor Nancy McFarlane, who was sworn in on December 5, voted with the majority.

Education is sorely needed, because while polls show North Carolinians support legal recognition of same-sex couples, it’s another matter to get those in favor of fairness to out to vote — to give straight allies (as well as LGBTs) the information they need to speak to their friends and neighbors to motivate them with facts about what this amendment will do.

The groups working to pass an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment in North Carolina include the Christian Action League, Return American and the North Carolina Family Policy Council all citing religion as the reason for fomenting anti-gay bigotry in my state.

Perdue took the politically safe route of emphasizing the waste of time and money that the Republicans who pushed this amendment initiative through as unemployment plagues our state, but it is a slap in the face to use the statement to reiterate that every taxpaying LGBT citizen in this state is a second-class citizen and she likes it that way.

She didn’t have to do it, but she did. And that matters.