12-Year-Old Boy With Two Moms Asks That North Carolina Acknowledge His Family

In heated national debates about gay rights, it’s often easy to forget about those that are neither left nor right but perhaps the most ultimately effected: the kids. North Carolina is in the throes of a very controversial amendment right now that would jeopardize the health care and protections of many, many children who perhaps weren’t “lucky” enough to be born to legally married heterosexual parents. Amendment One, up for a vote in North Carolina in May, would ban all same-sex and straight civil unions as well as domestic partnerships, stripping their parents of a few prominent legal means by which to parent them, including health benefits. And for one 12-year-old boy named Isak Atkins-Pearcy, the issue is very personal considering that he himself has two mothers.

Same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, but Amendment One seeks to weed out the few remaining legal protections for same-sex couples by not acknowledging their union in any legal context.

Isak’s meditation on Love=Love puts you right in the center of his family portrait, in which the security he enjoys with his two mothers and sister would suddenly be threatened should Amendment One pass. You see the young man on the street protesting the law with red cheeks as he reflects on what he thinks love and family is truly about.

His voice and activism are a valuable part of the discussion surrounding this hazardous amendment that poses a severe threat to so many families and children.

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love = love from Mimi Schiffman on Vimeo.