North Carolina's Virulently Anti-LGBTQ+ Lt. Gov. Runs for Governor

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an extreme right-winger who has called LGBTQ+ people “filth,” is seeking the 2024 Republican nomination for governor.

Robinson announced his candidacy Saturday. In North Carolina, the governor and lieutenant governor run separately, not as a slate. Robinson will face North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell in the Republican primary, while the likely Democratic nominee is Josh Stein, currently the state’s attorney general. Current Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, cannot run again due to term limits.

Robinson held a rally at Ace Speedway and also released a video, in which he said, “I don’t care about the zip code you live in, the size of your paycheck, whether you’re Black, white, straight, or gay.” However, his record belies that statement.

Speaking at a North Carolina church in June 2021, he said, “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”

He added, “And yes, I called it filth, and if you don’t like that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.”

In November of that year, in another church appearance, he said straight couples are superior to same-sex ones because they can potentially reproduce sexually. He equated LGBTQ+ people with “what the cows leave behind” as well as “maggots” and “flies.”

Just last month, he told a church congregation, “Makes me sick every time I see it, when I pass a church that flies that rainbow flag, which is a direct, a direct spit in the face of God almighty,” The American Independentreports. He also said, “God formed me because he knew there was going to be a time when God’s learning was going to be intolerable to the wicked, when children were going to be dragged down to go see the drag show, when pornography was going to be presented to our children in schools.”

His anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric goes back years. In January 2017, he posted on Facebook calling Michelle Obama “he” and “an anti-American, abortion and gay marriage supporting, liberal leftist elitist and I’ll be glad when he takes his boyfriend and leaves the White House.”

He also has made many anti-choice, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and pro-gun comments, and he has put down his fellow Black Americans. He has said a woman’s body ceases to be her own when she is pregnant. He has called survivors of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., “silly little immature media prosti-tots” for their activism on behalf of gun control.

On Facebook, he said of the movie Black Panther, “It is absolutely AMAZING to me that people who know so little about their true history and REFUSE to acknowledge the pure sorry state of their current condition can get so excited about a fictional ‘hero’ created by an agnostic Jew [Stan Lee] and put to film by satanic marxist. How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets, invoke any pride?”

About reparations for slavery, he said in 2021, “Nobody owes you anything for slavery. If you want to tell the truth about it, it is you who owes. Why do you owe? Because somebody in those fields took strikes for you! … Somebody had to walk through Jim Crow for you! Somebody fought wars and died for you!”

Democrats reacted swiftly to Robinson’s announcement. “Mark Robinson is an extremist who has built a legacy of division by spewing hate toward the LGBTQ community, disrespecting women, putting culture wars ahead of classrooms, and pushing to ban abortion with no exceptions,” said a statement from Anderson Clayton, the North Carolina Democratic Party chair, broadcaster WRAL reports. “We need a Governor who will expand opportunities for working families and uphold our fundamental rights — not a dangerous politician whose reckless policies would kill jobs and threaten North Carolinians’ future.”

Republican activist Jonathan Felts predicted Robinson would win the primary over Folwell, who is also an opponent of LGBTQ+ rights and abortion rights. “The short answer is that Robinson's going to win the primary,” Felts told WRAL. “The longer answer is Dale Folwell’s a great public servant, but I just don’t see a pathway for him to be able to get his message out there.”