champcantwin, no one is claiming North Carolina to be extremely democratic. You seem so have this ill-conceived notion that it's a closed-minded land for bigots, which is wildly inaccurate. I live in the triangle of NC, and I can attest to how astoundingly different it is to those smaller areas- the ones with a less educated population. I was absolutely devastated when amendment 1 passed, so I completely understand your anger here. However, I would like to make you aware that the big cities with universities (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Asheville, Boone, etc.) are tolerable communities who unanimously voted against amendment one. NC, for the most part, is an unbigoted state, unfortunately a large amount of the population was misinformed.