A top North Carolina elections official has quit over a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

Sherre Toler, a Democrat, resigned from her 11-year post as Harnett County elections director, saying she could not in good conscience preside over the upcoming vote.

The move allows Toler to speak out against the bill, something she was discouraged from doing as a state election worker.

“The rights of a minority group being put to a popular vote,” Toler told the Associated Press. “It's immoral and unconstitutional.”

In an interview with progressive blogger Pam Spaulding, Toler added that “discrimination is discrimination in whatever form it takes.”

“The Supreme Court acknowledged in the Loving case that the 'freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides in the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.' … The same constitutional provisions that led the court to that decision most certainly apply to the 'freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of [the same gender] resides with the individual …' We cannot allow the civil rights of a minority group to be put to the vote of a majority.”

In her January 3 resignation letter, Toler said she would open her own political consulting business to work against the amendment's passage and help elect progressive candidates.