Conservative Christian activists have embraced Mark Robinson, the controversial North Carolina lieutenant governor. The Family Research Council has praised Robinson as “a man revered by parents everywhere.” Churches throughout North Carolina have opened their pulpits to him and his fire-breathing sermon/speeches.
They all applauded the self-described evangelical’s rude, crude and inflammatory comments about their sworn enemies: Democrats, public schools, women seeking abortions, gun violence survivors demanding gun laws, and gays, lesbians and transgender people.
Church members thrilled to his sermons/speeches, a dozen of which were evaluated by the online news outlet The Assembly:
In the Gospel According to Mark Robinson, the United States is a Christian nation, guns are part of God’s plan, abortion is murder, climate change is “godless … junk science,” and the righteous, especially men, should follow the example of the Jesus who cleansed the temple armed with a whip, and told his disciples to make sure they packed a sword.
Donald Trump endorsed Robinson’s current campaign to be North Carolina’s next governor, praising him as “Martin Luther King times two.”
Then came CNN’s bombshell report last Thursday: Until a decade ago, Robinson was a frequent visitor to a Black pornography website called Nude Africa where he regularly watched transgender porn and posted comments guaranteed to offend a variety of constituencies.
In comments Robinson posted on the porn site, he praised Hitler, called himself a “black NAZI,” said he supported slavery, confessed to formerly “peeping” on women as they showered, admitted an affair with his wife’s sister; and called civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “Martin Lucifer Koon.”
The responses to the scandal so far:
- Ever defiant, Robinson denied the posts were his and promised to stay in the race, where he is currently trailing Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.
- The North Carolina GOP said it stands with Robinson and criticized CNN for “trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”
- Trump avoided any mention of Robinson at a Saturday rally in Wilmington, N.C. (Robinson did not attend).
- The Kamala Harris campaign rushed out ads linking Robinson and Trump in the hopes of turning voters against both in this swing state, which has 16 electoral votes.
- Key leaders of Robinson’s campaign resigned over the weekend.
- It’s not clear whether Christian pro-family groups that have faithfully supported Robinson so far will stop doing so now.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson joins the stage with former U.S. President Donald Trump during a rally at The Farm at 95 on April 9, 2022, in Selma, N.C. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
The New York Times’ David French called the scandal and response “one of the most predictable crises in the history of party politics” in his column, “MAGA Wants Transgression, and This Is What Comes With It.”
“No one … should be surprised,” wrote French. “Even before the primary, Robinson’s horrific character was on display.”
Offending audiences is the norm. In a March campaign speech to a group of Republican women, Robinson said: I “absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”
Family Research Council, the D.C.-based activist group founded four decades ago by Focus on the Family, promoted Robinson throughout 2021 during his successful run for lieutenant governor.
Tony Perkins
FRC President Tony Perkins introduced him as “a wildly popular conservative who’s become a cult hero among parents who are clamoring for more leaders to do something” in a Feb. 2021 article, “Here’s to You, Mr. Robinson …” And Perkins has hosted him on FRC’s “Washington Watch” program:
- February 2021: Robinson criticized state education programs “infused” with Critical Race Theory
- September 2021: He condemned “the indoctrination happening in North Carolina public schools”
- October 2021: He detailed “the pushback he has received from the Left for speaking out about radical LGBT indoctrination in public schools”
FRC gave him a speaking slot at its 2023 Pray Vote Stand conference and has regularly featured his critiques of the left.
FRC has not commented on the latest scandal, nor has the Focus-affiliated NC Family Policy Council, which highlighted Robinson’s initiative “to combat bias, indoctrination and discrimination in our state’s education system.”
“It’s not just about indoctrination in the classroom,” Robinson told NC Family Policy Council. “It’s also about bias in the classroom, where conservative voices, Christian voices, are being pushed out of the conversation, or not being allowed to be a part of the conversation. … Right now, we have a lot of people on the left, on the hard left, who are using our education system basically as their own personal playground to push their own personal agendas.”
The Robinson scandal carries echoes of Herschel Walker’s disastrous run for the U.S. Senate from Georgia in 2022. In both cases, white evangelical “pro-family” political groups went all-in for conservative Black men who had no previous political experience, publicly trumpeted all the right family values, but violated them in private.
Walker was a great running back for Georgia and four NFL teams, but he failed to live up to his own campaign hype: “As a Christian, a father, and a husband, Herschel knows that strong families are the bedrock of our country.”
In interviews, Walker criticized fatherless households for the pain and damage they cause. Only after news reports revealed that Walked had a son he had refused to support did Walker finally fess up, sort of.
Family Research Council stood with him when his scandal broke and criticized Democrats for “dragging his family” into the race.
The Times’ David French worries that conservative Christians have been converted to Trump’s warped views on character: “Trump has changed the Republican Party and Republican Christians far more than they have changed him.”
“In nine years, countless Republican primary voters have moved from voting for Trump in spite of his transgressions to rejecting anyone who doesn’t transgress,” he added. “If you’re not transgressive, you’re suspicious. Decency is countercultural in the Republican Party. It’s seen as a rebuke of Trump.”
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