NC: State senator's wife can't recall what she said about "protecting the Caucasian race"

From Think Progress: The wife of a prominent North Carolina state senator and supporter of Amendment 1 — a proposed ballot initiative that would outlaw same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships in the state — claimed earlier this week that her husband advocated for the measure to protect the “Caucasian” race.

Jodie Brunstetter, the wife of North Carolina state Sen. Peter Brunstetter, made the remarks “outside the early voting site at the Forsyth County Government Center in downtown Winston-Salem” while speaking to voters, Chad Nance, a Winston-Salem freelance journalist, reports. Nance heard about Jodie’s comments from an African-American poll worker who allegedly overheard Brunstetter say, “The reason my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce.”

Asked to clarify her statement, Brunstetter reluctantly confirmed that she did in fact use the phrase “Caucasian”:

BRUNSTETTER: [P]eople who founded the United states wrote a Constitution and it has been what has preserved this society. And we were just talking about lots of different things which the gentleman was turning around.

NANCE: You didn’t tell that one lady that it was to preserve the Caucasian race, because they were becoming a minority? That’s what an old lady down the block told us.

BRUNSTETTER: No, no.

NANCE: You didn’t say that? She’s lying?

BRUNSTETTER: No. It’s just that same sex marriages are not having children. [...]

NANCE: You didn’t say anything about Caucasians?

BRUNSTETTER: I probably said the word.

NANCE: In reference to….? You didn’t tell her anything about Caucasians? …

BRUNSTETTER: Right now I am a little confused myself because there has been confusion here today about this amendment, where it is very simple. The opponents are saying things that are not true and so there has been a lot of conversation going back and forth…. Right now I have some heat stroke going on. I’m not quite sure now. Because there has been lots of confusion.

NANCE: So you did or did not say anything about Caucasians?

BRUNSTETTER: If I did it wasn’t anything race related.

I'm still not clear why anyone would bring up the word "caucasian" - a word which is a racial identifier - if you are not discussing a racial issue.