I don’t live in NC.

I haven’t for years. About 17 if you want to get all you’re-an-old-lady about it.

But I grew up there. And I stuck up for people there. I have family and friends there.

And today (if I click publish in time), the majority of that state made, what I feel is a stupid decision. Fair warning: Julie’s much more eloquent about this than I can be. Me? I’m just mad. And sad. And I keep picturing the face of my good friend. And my strangely like-minded sister. And the girl I was on the flag team with. And the lady I know through social networking with the awesome kids.

My friend, my good friend, my best friend for a lotta years? She’s gay. She’s deeply, madly crazy in love with her wife. They have their issues. (If you meet a married couple who doesn’t, they’re either lying or haven’t known each other very long.) That doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. And it doesn’t affect me other than I like that my friend is happy. Doesn’t affect my marriage at all. And before today, they couldn’t be legally married in NC anyway. Today didn’t change that. Hmm… aren’t you glad the state wasted so much money on that turn of events? (They married in VT, which is more loving and financially stable.) (For the record, they honeymooned in NC. Bet they wouldn’t have done that had they known how NC felt about them. Some decisions have economic fallout.)

My sister? She’s in love with her husband. It’s her third husband and I think this time she’s gotten it right. I think this one will last for a long time. But you know what, not everyone marries the right person the first time. Gay or straight. Not every person IS that same person for the person they married over time. Gay or straight. Her love? Not contingent on mine or my friend’s. Her love and my love and my friend’s could all be in the same state at the same time and non would diminish. How awesome is that!

The girl I was on the flag team with? She’s my age, so well passed baby-birthing prime. Nevertheless, she had a kid last year. She married the father this year. My friend’s love, my love, my sister’s love…none of that has a damn thing to do with hers. She and her baby and her new husband are free to love each other as they see fit and no matter how much I love my husband, whether we’re visiting NC or not, isn’t going to change that one way or the other.

The couple we used to know that were friends with my husband’s parents? The one’s who used to jokingly refer to their kids as “Oreos” because they were half black and half white? Yeah. They’d have been affected by the last Amendment One. The last time NC legislated hate and misunderstanding and inequality. But they weren’t. They came along later. And divorce or not, for a while — a long while, they were happy and raised some good kids and loved one another.

Maybe we should all do more to promote legislating love instead of hate.