Perdue disputes claim about marriage amendment

One of the more intriguing tidbits that came from the debate at the UNC Law School about a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and domestic unions was a comment from House GOP Leader Paul "Skip" Stam about Gov. Bev Perdue's involvement in the negotiations.

Stam claimed that Perdue pushed to move the amendment vote to the May primary ballot instead of November. Only then did she give the swing-vote House Democrats the go-ahead to vote for it. "I don't think it will matter to her re-election chances," Stam added after the debate, "but she was concerned it would hurt her."

Perdue's office issued a statement to Dome saying not true: "The governor didn’t want the General Assembly to waste its time considering this unnecessary amendment at all.  Moving the amendment to the May ballot removed ONE of the governor’s objections, which was that the Republicans were using the constitutional amendment process to tilt the 2012 general election. The Governor never encouraged legislators to put the amendment on ANY ballot."

Stam attributed his statement to the 10 House Democrats who supported the amendment -- but at least three of them told Dome that they didn't hear from Perdue's people at all.

In between the who-said-what fight, it's worth noting that the statement from Perdue's office is her strongest language yet against the amendment after her office avoided taking a stance during the debate. Perdue still has not said whether she will personally vote for the referendum or not.