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Proponents and opponents of the gay marriage amendment are sprinting toward Tuesday’s finish line with fundraising, advertising and word-of-mouth campaigning.

Both sides emailed pleas Sunday for money. Vote for Marriage N.C., the pro-amendment side, says it’s received about half of the $50,000 last-minute surge it sought.

On Friday, the group reported last-minute donations of $41,500, including $36,500 from a Baptist church in Charlotte and $5,000 from a Baptist church in Gastonia. It also received a late infusion of $125,000 from the National Organization for Marriage, bringing that group's total contributions to $425,000.

The anti-side, Coalition to Protect All N.C. Families, reported $146,610 in new money on Friday. That includes a $3,000 donation from movie star and North Carolina native Zach Galifianakis, and $5,000 from Capitol Broadcasting’s CEO Jim Goodmon.

It also received a late $125,210 gift from a Human Rights Campaign PAC. The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign and the PAC have chipped in about half a million dollars.

On Monday, Vote for Marriage will have a rally with ministers in North Raleigh. The Coalition to Protect on Monday will get help staffing its phone bank from members of the cast of “Wicked,” the traveling Broadway show currently playing in Durham.

From Tim Funk at The Charlotte Observer: N.C. Baptists meeting today in Greensboro elected Charlotte pastor Mark Harris to be their new president and endorsed a proposed state constitutional amendment that would reinforce North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage.

Running unopposed, the 45-year-old Harris, who's senior pastor at First Baptist Church in uptown Charlotte, was elected to a one-year term as president of the N.C. Baptist State Convention.

Harris has also been in the forefront of a push in recent years to move the convention further to the right, especially on homosexuality. In 2006, the convention adopted a policy crafted by a committee that Harris chaired. It said Baptist churches that "knowingly act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior" would be considered "not in friendly cooperation" with the convention.

Today, delegates, or "messengers," to the convention's annual meeting approved, without discussion or dissent, a resolution backing the proposed N.C. constitutional amendment that state voters will consider next May. 

In an interview with the Observer, Harris said one of his pledges as president will be to work with other pastors and their congregations for passage of the proposed amendment and to push for other issues they consider family-friendly.

"We are committed to building strong families," Harris said, "and, as a body of believers in this state, we are willing to stand up and be counted. We want to take a stand on marriage and ... be salt and light for this state." Read the full report here.