I lived there in the 1990s, where I witnessed the efforts of a conservative Christian group, the Oregon Citizens Alliance, to mobilize voters to oppose civil rights for gays and lesbians. It took advantage of the state's relatively open ballot initiative system, mounting an incendiary campaign that still reverberates in the state's classrooms and legislative halls.

            Oregon's Ballot Measure Nine told voters that by voting to deny rights to gay men and lesbians they could preserve "the family." Their sacrifices would be diminished, they charged, if gays and lesbians were offered equal rights-- reframed as "special rights."

            Though the measure was defeated, when I interviewed people in the small town of Cottage Grove in central Oregon a couple of years later, people were still reeling from the divisions the campaign had wrought. Families were still not speaking to each other. A bond designed to build a much-needed school was stalled. A shifting wave of resentments began to morph into anti-immigrant fervor.

            Today, in North Carolina voters are faced with a similar choice: should they interpret their state constitution to restrict protections to the legally married? It is eerily reminiscent of the earlier Oregon measure --and equally misguided.

            Oregon is about as far from North Carolina as one can get and still be in the US--geographically, and also culturally. It is one of the whitest states in the country, while North Carolina has one of the highest concentrations of African Americans. It is one of the most unchurched states in the country, known for breeding live-and-let-live sensibilities, while North Carolina is in the Bible Belt.

            What they do have in common is a growing gap between rich and poor, which tends to mirror urban-rural divisions.

            Twenty years ago, many Oregonians who had lost their jobs in the lumber mills and other industries, voted against gay rights. Today, supporters of North Carolina's Amendment One are hoping to enlist a similar mix of voters, many of them faithful Christians, to support the proposed Amendment.

            By seeking to prohibit civil unions and domestic partnerships, as well as same-sex marriage, the proposed North Carolina amendment represents an even more sweeping assault on alternatives to "traditional" coupledom.

            It comes at a time when gays and lesbians enjoy more legal protections, and greater visibility nationally. In an era when Ellen Degeneres is the girl next door, and where television shows like "Modern Family" feature images of gay domesticity, the spectre of rampant homosexual perversity loses much of its charge.

            In addition to attacking the growing legitimacy of same-sex relationships, the proposed amendment also goes after domestic partnerships, which are theoretically open to heterosexuals who choose to live together outside of marriage, as well as gays and lesbians.

            Advocates for the rights of gays and lesbian families have argued "love makes a family": family should not be based narrowly on blood, nor on assumptions of permanence, but on our capacity for caring, and on the quality of relationships.

            As divorce rates rise, more and more people come to live alone, and the  "til death do us part" model of marriage seems ever more tenuous,  "all of our families are queer," as sociologist Judith Stacey has put it. For better and for worse, intimate relationships are often much more individually oriented, and more fluid. For many people, this comes as a welcome change, bringing greater freedom.

            Moral entrepreneurs in North Carolina are trying to capitalize on the unease that sometimes accompanies these changes. They are tapping into the fears that people have about losing a way of life, economic security, and a family structure that once seemed relatively stable. And they view changes in family life as the cause of these insecurities.

             But by denying protections to those who choose not to marry members of the opposite sex, or those who choose not to marry altogether, they're failing to attack the problem at its core. The only way to effectively address the root causes of family insecurity is to guarantee social supports such as childcare, and jobs that provide a living wage.

Arlene Stein is a professor of sociology at Rutgers, and the author of The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community's Battle Over Faith, Sex, And Civil Rights (Beacon). She edits Contexts magazine.