To: Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney General
Tell North Carolina Attorney General: Churches should have religious freedom to marry gay couples
North Carolina's marriage laws criminalizing pastors for blessing same-sex relationships are blatantly unconstitutional. As an official sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, including the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom, you must decline to defend these laws in federal court.
Why is this important?
Tired of hearing religious liberty used to justify discrimination? You'll love this.
In North Carolina, it's actually a crime for a pastor to bless a same-sex relationship. So in a historic case, the United Church of Christ, together with a group of local pastors and couples, is seeking to overturn the state's marriage laws because they violate the church's religious freedom to celebrate same-sex weddings.
This first-of-its-kind lawsuit could set a hugely important legal precedent. And the North Carolina attorney general can help by declining to defend against the lawsuit and telling the court he agrees that the state's marriage laws are unconstitutional.
Attorney General Roy Cooper says he supports marriage equality, but his office is still planning to argue against the lawsuit in court -- ignoring the example of the Obama administration, which last year told the U.S. Supreme Court that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and should be overturned.
Presumably, Cooper is worried about his political future in a state with many conservative Christian voters. So let's show him that we're standing with the United Church of Christ and want churches to have the religious freedom to treat same-sex couples exactly the same as opposite-sex ones.