Same-Sex Couples in North Carolina Don’t Have Equal Abuse Protections
A lawsuit seeks protective orders even when queer couples don’t live together.
If the woman known as M.E. had lived with her girlfriend in North Carolina, she could have gotten significant legal protection once their relationship turned abusive. She would also have been eligible for that help—a domestic violence protective order—if her ex had been a man.
But because she did not share a home with her same-sex partner, a judge said she could not use the threat of jail to try to keep her alleged abuser away.
That decision—and the state statute behind it—are now being challenged in the state’s Court of Appeals by the
