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Amendment opponents and supporters agree that health insurance and other benefits offered by local governments – for gay and unmarried heterosexual couples – would be disallowed if the amendment passes. 

Such domestic partner benefits are offered by nine local governments across the state. The change would affect about 70 households. But the impact on corporate employees is more unclear and could affect far more people. Read more here. 

--In its hard climb to raise $36.6 million for the Democratic National Convention, Charlotte’s host committee is reaching out to one of the party’s perennial allies: labor unions. They represent a potentially lucrative fountain of money. While the convention’s new self-imposed fundraising rules prohibit cash donations from corporations, lobbyists and PACs, they put no limits on money from union treasuries.

--John Edwards' attorneys battered Andrew Young in cross-examination. Trial Day 3 story here.

The anti-amendment group striving to defeat a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions is ramping up efforts and raising serious money.

The Coalition to Protect All NC Families (formerly known as just the Coalition to Protect NC Families) filed a campaign finance report showing it raised more than $200,000 since it formed in November.

About $30,000 of that amount is from about 450 individual donors giving $50 to $100, nearly all of them from North Carolina. But some outside groups also are getting involved: The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign has written a check for $20,000 and sent staffers to work in North Carolina. The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, based in Boston, has contributed $2,500. One of the biggest donors: Replacements Ltd., a Greensboro-based company that is the largest retailer of tableware in the world, has already chipped in $100,000.

The coalition has spent the money on bringing to the state Kennedy, a veteran political strategist from Maine; on a Beverly Hills consulting firm; on a national fundraising consultant and one from Raleigh, and for an extensive statewide poll by a D.C. company. Read more about the group's efforts here.