Karen Pence, wife of Vice President
Mike Pence, spoke this week at a campaign rally in North Carolina for
Mark Harris, an ardent opponent of LGBT rights.
Harris, a former pastor at First
Baptist Church in Charlotte, won the GOP primary in May, knocking out
incumbent Representative Robert Pittinger.
Comments Harris has made about women
have fueled recent headlines. As a preacher and political candidate,
Harris has repeatedly said that women should submit to their husbands
and has questioned whether women having careers is “healthy” for
society.
“I'm here because this race is so
important,” Pence told the crowd. “The road to the majority
leads right through North Carolina. This seat, this race, it is
critical to keep the majority in Congress.”
Right
Wing Watch points out that Harris opposed Charlotte's LGBT
protections law. His First Baptist Church contributed more than
$50,000 toward the successful campaign to amend North Carolina's
constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual union.
During a 2013 television appearance,
Harris
said: “I've yet to buy in, as there is not the medical
evidence, that an individual that chooses the homosexual lifestyle is
born that way. That is a choice.”
Harris is a member of the Family
Research Council's (FRC) ministry arm Watchmen on the Wall, a group
opposed to LGBT rights. FRC claims on its website that “homosexual
conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at
large.”
At a rally in Jomeokee, North Carolina
in 2015, Harris
said: “In one generation, you and I have witnessed this country
sliding from a nation who once shared a moral vision based on
Judeo-Christian ethic to a nation floundering in moral decay. In one
generation we have watched our nation who once believed in lifelong
marriages to the same spouse to a divorce rate now well over 50
percent. We have watched in one generation where homosexuality was
once criminalized to now we see the criminalization of Christianity.”
Pence praised Harris at this week's
rally. “We need good men like Mark Harris in Congress to keep the
country moving ahead,” she said.