Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers has compared North Carolina’s marriage amendment, on the ballot May 8, to Jim Crow laws of the Old South:
Responding to a question from the floor about his views on Amendment One, Rogers told about 300 business executives at the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club that he would answer personally, not as head of the Charlotte-based utility.
“If this amendment passes, we’re going to look back 20 years from now, or 10 years from now, and we’re going to think about that amendment the same way we think about the Jim Crow laws that were passed in this state many, many years ago,” Rogers said to applause.
There are two possible implications of this: Either Rogers believes that the tens of thousands of his customers who will vote for the amendment are too ignorant to recognize a bigoted law when they see it, or he thinks they are bigots themselves. Neither caricature is flattering or conducive to civil dialog.
