Gubernatorial candidate takes stand against marriage amendment

Barbara Howe, the Libertarian candidate for governor, is so upset with the recent vote to amend North Carolina's constitution to define heterosexual marriage as the only legal union in the state that she decided to scrap her own marriage license.

Howe and her husband, Tom, set up a paper shredder outside the Legislative Building on Tuesday morning and ran their 35-year-old marriage license through it as a sign of protest.

"I believe in limited government," she said. "Government should protect us from people who hurts us but otherwise just stay out of our lives, and that's not what we're getting in North Carolina."

The marriage amendment writes discrimination into the North Carolina constitution, Barbara Howe said, calling it "an abomination" and vowing to work to repeal it.