North Carolina’s Tragic Domestic Violence Laws

Astoundingly North Carolina might be the only state in the country wherein people who are unmarried and in same-sex relationships or were in such relationships cannot access protective orders if they are or were victims of domestic violence.

What Is A Protective Order For Domestic Violence?

A protective order is in effect an emergency protection order but longer term. A protection order can last generally up to 5 years and the minimum length of one is usually a year, whereas an EPO is often just for a few days. Often what people think of when they think of a restraining order (which is generally used as an umbrella term to describe EPO’s, PO’s, and actual restraining orders) is what a protective order can be or is. Protective orders can come with many different provisions such as a stay away provision which is exactly what it sounds like, or a firearms provision which require the person whom the order is about to surrender firearms and/or prohibits them from legally purchasing one.

How Does This Affect People?

There were some 150,000 almost 160,000 people in 2014 who were victims of abuse. Though the number of them that are LGBTQ+ is obviously smaller than that that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have equal protection under the law. An abuser doesn’t care about the gender of their victim and men can abuse men and women can abuse women and the law shouldn’t care about the gender compositions of abusive relationships either.

It is frustrating and humiliating to know that North Carolina law, which is often flawed, doesn’t treat same-sex couples with the same respect and the same seriousness with which it treats heterosexual couples.

How Can This Be Changed?

Presently it is looking more and more like the courts could be the people to fix this. North Carolina’s Attorney General, Democrat Joshua Stein is moving through the courts to try and have the law that perhaps inadvertently prohibits unmarried victims of domestic violence by a same-sex former romantic partner from seeking out a protection order overturned on the basis of it being unconstitutional since it causes unequal protections under the law. His efforts are supported by the state’s Governor Roy Cooper. It is my hope that at some point a politician in the state’s legislature will craft new legislation that ensures that all victims of domestic violence have equal protection under the law no matter what gender they are and what gender their abuser happens to be.

North Carolinians deserve better than this. LGBTQ+ people in North Carolina deserve to feel as if the law views them in the same way as it views heterosexual individuals. Everyone should feel as if the courts would offer them protection, kindness, and justice if they are ever victimized by someone and right now North Carolina courts don’t do that for LGBTQ+ people. Let’s raise awareness of this and fight to change it using our voices.

How Can You Help?

Contact your representatives and ask them to craft a new piece of legislation that rectifies this injustice. Or tell them to amend and expand N.C. Gen. Stat. 50B-1, which is where the legal definition of domestic violence in North Carolina comes from.

Tell them that LGBTQ+ North Carolinians deserve to feel the safety that a DVPO affords many victims of domestic violence and the knowledge that if their abusers continue to harass and terrify them they will face serious legal consequences, not be forced to hope they can get a “Civil No-Contact Order” also known as a “50C”. “Civil No-Contact Orders” can offer more specific forms of protection for victims but carries less weight (because the things they can do are lesser than the things that can be done by a DVPO, which can cause people who have DVPO’s against them to be unable to purchase a firearm for instance) and are harder for law enforcement to enforce and can last for up to a year (and are renewable renewable).

Stand up for victims of domestic violence, no matter their gender, and no matter the gender of their abusers.