North Carolina candidate for U.S. Senate to join deeply anti-gay event

« Go back a post || Return to G-A-Y homepage || Haul tail to next post »

04/02/2014

by Jeremy Hooper

Mark Harris, a North Carolina pastor who has a long history of fighting for discrimination against LGBT people in his state, is currently in a race to be the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, hoping to face off against Democrat Kay Hagan in the fall. In order to up his senatorial credibility, Pastor Harris will soon join some of our nation's most anti-LGBT voices at an upcoming Family Research Council event:

Bishop Jackson has described same-sex marriage as "a satanic plot to destroy our seed." Tony Perkins equates homosexuality with drug abuse and says its "a fact" that gays will face eternal damnation. Rick Scarborough says AIDS is God's judgement on gays. And then there's FRC's Kenyn Cureton who, while speaking in North Carolina back in 2012, said that LGBT people are "poor, deluded souls" who are "simply pawns in the hands of their malevolent master" (i.e. the Devil):

"Who do you think is ultimately behind the efforts to advance the radical homosexual agenda, indoctrinate our children, and ruin our military, now? Who's behind the efforts to get God out of government, Christ out of culture, and faith out of public life? Who's behind it? Well, I think we've got a pretty clear answer. [laughter] The Devil is behind it! So, the real enemy…it's not the poor, deluded souls who are advancing these ungodly agendas—they're simply pawns in the hands of their malevolent master. They need to be set free by the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ—amen?…As you think about this battle in which we're engaged, you need to think about who the real enemy is that we're fighting against here, and that is, the fact is, we're up against the organized, mobilized, demonized forces of hell itself. And really, to the victor goes the prize of the America our children will inherit, so this is a fight we dare not lose. Amen?"

Then again, Pastor Harris has himself admitted that he doesn't want gay people to be seen as "fine and dandy":

SOURCE: Marriage Sunday–4/29/12 [FBC Charlotte]

So it's not like he's taking a great leap here. These are the birds of his feather. This is his base.

Is this what it takes to get to the United States Senate? Is this the kind of mindset that North Carolina Republicans want to send to that austere chamber? Is this what local Republicans want to put up against moderate Kay Hagan in the fall? Because I'm pretty good with that matchup, if that's the rabid way they want to go. Not just on LGBT rights, either, since the choice to shoot themselves in the foot would likely help us with gun control, too.

space