Fact-check: New marriage amendment not "exactly the same" as current law

House Majority Leader Skip Stam opened today’s debate on the proposed marriage amendment with the following statement: “The measure we have before you today is exactly the same policy about marriage as was adopted by this assembly in 1996. That is, there’ll be no same sex marriages performed in North Carolina, and those performed outside North Carolina will not be recognized. There’s no difference in the policy.”

That’s only partially true.

But current NC law doesn’t address the issue of civil unions, an option many gay and lesbian North Carolinians say could give them some, if not all, of the rights of marriage, like hospital visitation, inheritance and child custody rights.

The new amendment would outlaw civil unions as well as marriage between people of the same sex.

As Stam said today, “What this is saying is, no matter what you call it, if it’s an intimate relationship connected with the family, the only relationship that’s recognized in NC is that of one man and one woman.”