By Rose Laudicina
Staff Writer
When Rachel Kaplan found out that a group of North Carolina citizens could have their rights taken away due to a constitutional amendment on the May ballot, she decided to do something about it.
She chose to put pen to paper, enlist some help from friends and a founding father and sing about it.
“This is pretty much the civil rights movement of our generation, and I want to be somebody who takes part in that and not a bystander,†said Kaplan, a sophomore at UNC.
Kaplan wrote the play N.C. Amendment One: The Musical!, inspired by the celebrity-made video “Prop 8: The Musical!,†in which Jack Black as Jesus reminds California lawmakers that America was built on the separation of church and state, prompting them to realize they’d made a mistake in placing the matter on the ballot.
In Kaplan’s musical, which she also directed, produced and acted in, she replaces Jesus with George Washington, who returns from the past to scold lawmakers and wave a giant rainbow around the stage.
“To decree who you can love is the job of the state,†sings a group of suit-wearing government officials.
“What you’re doing is not democracy – you cannot vote on the rights of a minority,†George Washington retorts.
The lawmakers eventually see the error of their ways.
Kaplan created the play to educate and encourage people to vote on Amendment One, which will appear on the May 8 North Carolina primary ballot.
“My target audience is people who would vote against it, people who haven’t heard about it or people who wouldn’t have the motivation to go vote,†Kaplan said.
Amendment One would define marriage between a man and woman as the only domestic union recognized by the state.
Additionally, the amendment would invalidate domestic-partner benefits that employees of some municipalities – like Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County – now receive.
However, those who oppose the law say it could have an impact beyond the LGBTQ community.
“This amendment is much broader than preventing same-sex marriage,†Maxine Eichner, a UNC law professor, said at the Orange County Human Relations Month Forum on Sunday, which focused on the implications of the constitutional amendment.
Eichner spoke on a panel at the forum alongside Alex Miller, the interim executive director of Equality NC, Robert Campbell, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, and Brett Webb-Mitchell, an openly gay Presbyterian pastor.
Eichner said the amendment could prevent domestic-violence protection for unmarried partners regardless of their sexual orientation.
Kaplan, who along with her troupe of singing activists performed at the forum, said she wanted to make it clear in her play that the amendment could impact the rights of heterosexual couples who are living together but are not married.
Making people aware of that, she said, “could bring out a whole new demographic of people to vote against it.â€
Kaplan hopes to continue staging live performances of the play at various events, and closer to May 8 the cast will be performing the play in between class changes at UNC.
Until then, a video of the musical is available online at youtube.com/watch?v=RXgjqOLMZ7U
“I think this is a human rights issue,†Kaplan said. “I think it is really ridiculous that our country is still discriminating against this large minority.â€