North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), an anti-LGBTQ+ politician who is his party’s nominee for governor this year, considers same-sex marriage as an ungodly form of “wickedness.” It’s just the latest in a long string of inflammatory comments he has made that now threaten his chances of being elected.
“I’m going to have to answer to God almighty,” he said during a recently unearthed sermon he delivered on April 26, 2021 at People’s Baptist Church in Greenville, North Carolina. “I’m going to have to give an account for everything that I say or do on this journey he has put me on, and because of that, I intend to say some things that I am not supposed to say. Things like this: Marriage is between one man and one woman.”
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He also considers LGBTQ+ people as “filthy” “demons” who “mentally rape” children.
He continued, “It is ordained by God, and anything outside of that is wickedness.”
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In a 2018 Facebook comment, written three years after the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, he also wrote, “We have pushed homosexuality over the top. Mark my words PEDOPHILLA is next, which will be closely followed by the END of civilization as we know it.”
Robinson—who was recently accused of regularly patronizing state porn shops—has said that he considers LGBTQ+ people as “filthy” “demons” who “mentally rape” children. Among his many anti-LGBTQ+ statements, he has called homosexuality “an abominable sin,” has compared LGBTQ+ people to cow dung, and Satanic demons, and said trans people should defecate on public street corners outside rather than using bathrooms matching their gender identity. He has also made numerous racist and antisemitic comments.
Recent polls suggest that voters disapprove of him so highly that he could cause Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to lose the state in the upcoming national elections. A recent poll showed Trump leading his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, by only 1% in the state. Another recent poll showed Robinson running 14 points behind his Democratic opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, and most polls show Stein beating Robinson anywhere from 6% to 10%.
Democrats have tried to tie Robinson’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion rhetoric to Trump, who endorsed him as “[Martin Luther King Jr.] on steroids.” In addition to thinking very poorly of Martin Luther King—Robinson called him a bad pastor and a communist—Robinson has a long history of antisemitic statements, and voters nationwide seem largely opposed to his hardline brand of GOP anti-abortion policies that lack exceptions for rape and incest.
“Democrats say they hope that there’s an issue there with an unpopular Republican gubernatorial candidate sort of making the entire Republican ticket, the Republican brand in the state, less appealing,” Steve Kornaki, NBC News’ out gay national political correspondent, told WRAL.
Stein is running political ads highlighting Robinson’s past statements against abortion. Robinson once said that women who get abortions are “killing” children because they “weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” He has also said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.” He has regularly called feminists “fem-nazis” and once referred to women’s rights activists as “sexist, hairy armpit having, poo-poo hat wearing pinkos.”
Robinson voiced support for such hardline anti-abortion policies with no exceptions as recently as 2020. Robinson paid for his now-wife to have an abortion in 1989. He has said God allows school shootings in America as a punishment for Americans getting abortions.
The state’s high-stakes governor’s race whose outcome could be decided by pro-choice voters.
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