As of October 10th, 2014, same sex marriage has been legal in North Carolina. It all began when a federal judge ruled that the state’s denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples was deemed unconstitutional. The state’s governor and attorney general both agreed that a recent ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal in that case established the unconstitutionality of North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage.
While several individual cities and counties in North Carolina continue to provide domestic partnership registries for same sex couples seeking equal rights, the state as a whole continues to refuse equal recognition of same sex unions. In fact, the state has denied homosexual couples the right to marry by statutory edict since 1996. On May 8 of 2012, anti-homosexual groups pressed for the approval of Amendment One, an amendment to the state constitution that expressly prohibits same sex couples from marriage, as well as any form of legal family status for their children.
However, according to recent polling data, most North Carolina residents (62%) express approval for same-sex civil unions or marriages, with only 33% of voters opposed. The Williams Institute’s breakdown of 2010 U.S. Census data indicates that some 18,309 same sex couples currently reside in the state, representing about 4.9 couples out of every 1,000 households.
