Earlier this year, Republicans in the North Carolina legislature filed the “Marriage Amendment Reaffirmation Act,” which, if passed, would “declare null and void” the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling legalizing marriage equality. (Can they do that? No. Do they care? Of course not. Rules don’t apply to Republicans anymore.)

The bill is effectively dead. Even if it passed, the governor is a Democrat and Republicans don’t have the votes to override him. But you can understand why one reader of this site sent two of the Republican co-sponsors of that bill an email last month expressing his disgust for what they did. Reader Leo said this in a message he passed along to me:

I am just writing to remind you that the people of NC have still not forgotten your ignorant and unconstitutional pandering to the “old fashioned” intolerant evangelicals. America was founded on freedoms and personal liberty. If two people want to get married, then the government should not be getting involved in this as they are not the purveyors of morality. Two people getting married in no way affects me or my life and nor does it affect yours. The fact you have to keep yourself relevant by way of pandering to intolerant old people who think the bible should be the law of the land is shameful.

To my surprise, both lawmakers responded. To no one’s surprise, their responses were insane.

State Rep. Larry Pittman (above, left) told Leo he’d end up in Hell.

I have not forgotten that 61% of the voters in this State voted for the [2012] Marriage Amendment, 69% in Cabarrus County, and 65% in the district which I represented at the time. I have not forgotten that the NC Republican Party Platform calls on us to uphold the Marriage amendment. I have not forgotten that God is perfect, and therefore has no need to “change with the times,” and is, therefore, not “old fashioned,” nor is His Word. If you have a complaint about that, tell it to Satan when you see him. Rep. Pittman

That’s… a totally normal thing for a politician to say to anyone. You think we’re bigots? Well, we supported bigotry in 2012, and my party still supports bigotry, and God isn’t wrong so he must support bigotry, so have fun being tortured for eternity.

State Rep. Michael Speciale (above, right) wasn’t any more sensible in his response:

Leo, I am glad that you and others remember. I am proud to stand for God, Country and Family. Family is what happens when a man marries a woman and they have children. America was founded on Judeo/Christian principles, stamped firmly in the Word of God. This isn’t about religion, this is about what is right. North Carolinians overwhelmingly voted to preserve the Marriage Union as one man and one woman only, and no others. The Supreme Court got it wrong by inserting their liberal desires ahead of the job they were appointed to do. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the federal government any authority over marriage, and if homosexual marriages were intended by the founders, they would have existed at that time. I don’t care what your belief system is, you cannot legitimately argue that the US Constitution allows for homosexual unions (they are in no way marriages, regardless of what the government says). I don’t pander to anyone, and your ignorance of the Constitution is evident. You seem to have no problem perverting the Constitution to serve your own interests, but I am here to protect the liberties and freedoms of all citizens, and that includes not legitimizing every perverted act that people may decide to enter into. Michael

Who wants to tell infertile couples, married people who don’t want kids, or parents of adopted children that they don’t “count” as families…?

Speciale thinks same-sex marriage is unlawful because it wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, yet it’s not like the founders wrote about AR-15s in there either. Speciale sponsored a bill that would allow teachers to carry handguns in the classroom. Where did the Founding Fathers demand that?

And it’s telling that Speciale believes what two men or two women do in the bedroom is “perverted,” yet everything straight people do gets a free pass. At the very least, he’s not writing bills prohibiting their kinks.

This is GOP logic for you. It’s just Bible-based bigotry wrapped in an American flag and sold to the most ignorant people in the country. This is what citizens got with the help of the nation’s worst gerrymandering.

