Evangelical former Trump advisor Franklin Graham is defending Lt. Governor Mark Robinson after calls for the North Carolina Republican to resign for calling LGBTQ people “filth.”
Graham, who has made waging a decades-long battle against LGBTQ people a hallmark of his ministry, rushed to aid his fellow North Carolinian, by attacking his detractors.
“The comments that the woke cancel culture are so upset about,” Graham told his 9.7 million Facebook followers on Sunday, “were made personally when he was speaking at a church on a weekend. He called these topics being pushed on students ‘filth,'” Graham claimed.
Where the Lt. Governor elected to represent all North Carolinians made his remarks is immaterial, unless Graham believes that Christians should hold one view while inside a church and another outside.
And that’s not exactly what Robinson said.
“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism or homosexuality,” Robinson said. “Any of that filth!”
“And yes, I called it ‘filth,’ Robinson, a conspiracy theorist, added. “And if you don’t like it that I called it ‘filth,’ come see me and I’ll explain it to you. It’s time for us to stop letting these children be abused in schools, and it’s not going to happen til the people of God stand up and demand different, same ones that established those schools to begin with.”
Graham on Facebook added, “Lt. Gov. Robinson said, ‘To me, it is against the tenets of my religion. But we do not live in a theocracy, and I do not have the right to tell anyone what they practice in their home.’ Teaching about those issues in public schools, however, ‘is absolutely off limits,’ he said. He added, ‘Those are adult topics that should stay in an adult place. They have no business around children. Homosexuality is not a culture. Homosexuality is a sexual preference, and sexual preferences, I believe, do not need to be discussed in our schools.’ I totally agree.”
Try telling an LGBTQ student “transgenderism or homosexuality” are “adult topics” when their very being is being attacked. Try telling a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or questioning teen that “homosexuality is a sexual preference.”
Neither Graham nor Robinson have any idea what they’re talking about, and they’re both doing great harm and damage to LGBTQ children, youth, and teens.
Robinson, by the way, is an NRA board member who has filed for bankruptcy three times and “has been taken to court a few times over unpaid debts, and has been the subject of numerous IRS liens for failing to pay thousands of dollars in taxes,” which he says have been “taken care of.”
Robinson made “similar comments” earlier this month, as The Fayetteville Observer reported on Monday. Not at a church, as Franklin Graham seems to think is an important detail, but at a celebration for the anti-LGBTQ North Carolina Values Coalition, a group that joined with an anti-LGBTQ hate group to file an amicus brief against transgender student Gavin Grimm.
“And they’re pushing these perverted agendas, to try to teach our children that they’re really not boys or girls, or they’re shoving this homosexuality garbage down their throats,” he said.
Graham’s defense of Robinson comes after they both spoke at that North Carolina Values Coalition event. In his speech Robinson praised Graham, saying he saw Graham’s father, Billy Graham, in Franklin.