Regardless of whether you supported or opposed the Marriage Amendment, it is important to assess the legal, political, and social consequences of its passage. E. Gregory Wallace of the Campbell University School of Law begins that process with his recently published working paper,”The Sky Didn’t Fall: The Meaning and Legal Effects of the North Carolina Marriage Amendment.” Professor Wallace argues,
There was much disagreement prior to the vote about the meaning and potential legal effects of this provision. Led by law professors from every law school in North Carolina, opponents of the Amendment claimed that it not only would ban same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships, but also would threaten a wide range of legal benefits and protections given to all unmarried couples, whether heterosexual or homosexual, including existing domestic violence and child custody, adoption, and visitation laws. They also claimed that the Amendment’s passage would lead to a flood of litigation over its meaning. A year has passed and none of these predictions have come true.
He concludes that “understanding of the Amendment’s meaning and effect suggests that it is highly doubtful that the worst-case scenario predicted by many legal experts will ever appear. The widespread alarm about the Amendment’s “unintended consequences” only served to obscure a more substantive and meaningful debate about marriage equality—an opportunity lost that may not occur again for several years.” (p. 35)
In other words, did opponents of the amendment “cry wolf” one too many times during the Marriage Amendment debate? Perhaps.
