From the Vote FOR Marriage NC campaign website:

RALEIGH, NC – Today, Vote FOR Marriage NC launched a statewide TV advertisement (click play on the image above to view) that rebukes the falsehoods being propagated by those in opposition to the Marriage Protection Amendment.

“Advocates for homosexual marriage are desperate to avoid any discussion about the proper definition of marriage in North Carolina, so they have launched a desperate attempt to mislead people that the marriage amendment would damage unmarried people, especially women and children,” said Tami Fitzgerald, Chairwoman of Vote FOR Marriage NC. “Our new TV ad cites the report from independent legal experts at Campbell University Law School, proving that this Amendment does not disrupt protection for all qualified citizens under our domestic violence laws, and nobody will lose health insurance benefits.”

Our appreciation to the Vote4MarriageNC's official twitter account for bringing this to our attention -- a gay marriage activist reveals what was discussed on a conference call with Celinda Lake where she lays out her strategy to attempt to defeat the Marriage Protection Amendment in North Carolina.

What we find most revealing is how Lake concedes that same-sex marriage is a losing issue for them and they can only hope to win in North Carolina by obscuring the real debate over marriage:

"The issue here is that we’ve got to completely change the issue terrain – and that takes money [...] Our problem is that people – if they just go into the ballot box without being exposed to our campaign are going to think: “Marriage is between a man and a woman. And I believe in that.”

"Sadly, North Carolinians – including these primary voters – are very, very strong on that value. It’s a very old, very religious primary electorate. They really firmly believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and it should stay that way. We might all wish it were different but over three quarters of all of our groups believe that strongly."

You heard it confirmed by their side: 3/4 of North Carolinians believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Everything else is a distraction!

Legal scholar William C. Duncan over at NRO's The Corner blog:

The [Washington] Post story also relays some of the ludicrous claims that the North Carolina amendment would have unintended effects on all unmarried couples. A group of law professors at Campbell University have very effectively refuted such claims in a carefully-documented white paper. I’ve written about similar claims made against other amendments a few years ago in the Florida Coastal Law Review. It’s worth emphasizing that a majority of state marriage amendments also prohibit legal statuses that are just marriage by another name so what North Carolina is doing is hardly unprecedented. Some of these amendments have been on the books for eight years with none of the outcomes North Carolina gay-marriage advocates have predicted.

On the other hand, to understand why the proposed amendment’s drafters felt it necessary to include a prohibition of civil unions, one need only remember that a Ninth Circuit panel cited the fact that California had a marriage amendment and a civil-union statute simultaneously as a reason for invalidating California’s Proposition 8 just months ago.

Thomas Messner at Heritage's Foundry blog on North Carolina deciding marriage:

According to the Alliance Defense Fund, “Sixty-three million Americans have voted on marriage, and in 31 out of 31 states they have protected marriage as the union between one man and one woman.”

On May 8, North Carolinians will have the same opportunity when they vote on a ballot measure that would amend the North Carolina constitution to protect marriage as one man and one woman.

[Today] the debate about marriage includes not only whether and how to strengthen marriage but also, more fundamentally, what marriage is. That is the question North Carolina voters will decide on May 8.

...State constitutional amendments play an important part in helping to strengthen marriage by:

• Protecting marriage from judicial activism in state courts,
• Settling the marriage question for state lawmakers,
• Reinforcing the understanding that marriage as one man and one woman is deeply rooted in American values, history, and traditions, and
• Demonstrating a strong public awareness that marriage as one man and one woman should be affirmatively protected in law.

In addition, efforts to defend the core meaning of marriage as having something to do with mothers, fathers, and children should be coupled with efforts to strengthen marriage in general.