The Coalition to Protect North Carolina Families

Following up on a joint statement from Family Law professors from every law school in the state opposing Amendment One, Family Law experts have now upped the ante, releasing a video explaining these harms and objecting to claims that the Amendment is simply a reiteration of current law.

CLICK HERE to watch the video.

"Family law professors from across the state have been so actively opposed to Amendment One and have been speaking in so many venues because as teachers of Family Law, we are so concerned when the law of the family isn't clear. At a minimum, this amendment injects so much uncertainty into issues around the family," says Suzanne Reynolds, a Family Law professor at Wake Forest University School of Law says in the video.

Reynolds is one of many Family Law experts in the state who believes the amendment's passage could mean that children would lose health care and unmarried women and children could lose domestic violence protections.

"I'm not willing to risk one person to lose the benefit of domestic violence legislation, I'm not willing to risk one child to live one day longer in a home with domestic violence," says Reynolds.

"We can't afford to not protect our sisters, our mothers, our daughters," adds Scott Sigman of Charlotte School of Law. "Frankly, it's unconscionable, and we need to vote against this amendment."

Their statement (released last week by  State Representative Rick Glazier and State Senator Josh Stein, both practicing lawyers) comes in response to a position paper released by three professors at Campbell Law School challenging the validity of concerns raised by legal scholars about the impacts of Amendment One. Forest School of Law) and Senator Josh Stein (J.D.,

STATEMENT FROM FAMILY LAW PROFESSORS ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA

We are family law professors who teach at every law school in the state of North Carolina. We speak on behalf of ourselves, rather than our institutions. Based on our professional expertise, the language of the proposed North Carolina amendment is vague and untested, and threatens harms to a broad range of North Carolina families. The amendment is phrased more broadly than most similar amendments in other states, and would therefore likely be construed by courts more broadly than in other states. The amendment would certainly ban same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships, and would very likely ban the domestic partnership health insurance benefits that a number of municipalities and counties currently offer to same- and opposite-sex unmarried couples. It also threatens a range of other protections for unmarried partners and their children, including domestic violence protections and child custody law. We are aware that some law professors at Campbell Law School think otherwise. In our view, this disagreement simply underscores the fact that Amendment One is vaguely worded and that it is not possible to know how broadly it will eventually be construed.

Signed,

Jean Cary
Professor of Law, Campbell Law School

Scott Sigman
Associate Professor, Charlotte School of Law

Katharine Bartlett
A. Kenneth Pye Professor of Law, Duke Law School

Kathryn Bradley
Professor of the Practice of Law Director of Legal Ethics, Duke Law School

Carolyn McAllaster
Clinical Professor of Law Director, Duke Legal Project, Duke Law School

Sonya Garza Assistant
Professor, Elon School of Law

Kia H. Vernon
Assistant Professor of Law, North Carolina Central School of Law

Maxine Eichner
Reef C. Ivey II Professor of Law, UNC School of Law

Holning S. Lau
Associate Professor, UNC School of Law

Jennifer Collins
Professor of Law, Wake Forest School of Law

Suzanne Reynolds
Executive Associate Dean and Professor of Law, Wake Forest School of Law