Rep. Dale Folwell of Forsyth County is the Speaker of the North Carolina House, he writes in in the Winston-Salem Journal about imminent efforts to allow the people to vote on marriage:
Elected officials have lost the public's trust. Voters are fed up with business as usual in politics. Pushing the decision and power to constitutionally define marriage out of Raleigh and into the voters' hands will help restore confidence in our political system and our society.
The 120 members of the N.C. House of Representatives and 50 members of the N.C. Senate have two choices. They can either trust the state's 6 million voters to define marriage, or they can abdicate the decision to one activist judge. It will be a vote over who our elected officials think are more important, themselves or the voters of North Carolina.
For some, defining marriage has become a deeply emotional issue, and the fairest way to mediate such a controversial public policy issue is to trust the people and let them have the freedom to decide.
... North Carolina is not alone in debating whether to amend its constitution. Legislators in Minnesota have already approved putting this question before that state's voters in 2012. Indiana and Pennsylvania are also considering putting the question on their ballots.
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