The Durham County Board of Commissioners this week joined North Carolina’s LGBTQ lawmakers, state Democrats, faith leaders, and activists who have condemned Lt. Governor Mark Robinson’s characterization of homosexuality as “filth.”
The commissioners also announced that they are working with county staffers to “finalize a draft of a non-discrimination ordinance.”
The Durham commissioners’ actions took place on the same day that a cadre of N.C. House Democrats spoke in support of LGBTQ residents at a news conference, castigating Robinson’s homophobic remarks in a video that surfaced last week.
In a video recorded at a church, Robinson, a Republican, called “transgenderism” and homosexuality “filth.”
“We’re all here to affirm the value and importance of LGBTQ people, but I hope also to represent the kind of support that this community has in every corner of our state,” Rep. Vernetta Alston, a Durham Democrat, told N.C. Policy Watch.
Another Durham Democratic Party lawmaker, Marcia Morey, said Robinson “lit a match of hatred and intolerance.
“Hate and name calling has no place in the public discourse. Just like the N-word is abhorrent, so is calling transgenderism and homosexuality as ‘filth,’” Morey added.
Robinson later accused “the media and the left of changing the focus from the classroom to the LGBTQ community,” specifically, that I hate them,” he said on a video posted on the N.C. Values Coalition’s Facebook page.
Robinson later makes clear that he will not back down, saying “the idea that our children should be taught about concepts of transgenderism, and be exposed to sexually explicit material in the classroom, is abhorrent.”
County Commissioner Vice-Chair Wendy Jacobs read a “unity statement” before the board’s regular meeting Tuesday that not only rebuked Robinson’s comments that he recently made before a church congregation, but also “hate and discrimination of any kind,” according to the statement posted on the county’s website.
Describing Robinson’s comments as “hate speech,” Jacobs, on behalf of the board, said, “words matter,” and that there is no place for the acceptance of the lieutenant governor’s controversial remarks from anyone, “especially our local state or national leaders.
“As we have witnessed in recent painful, horrific, and deadly national events and throughout the history of our country – racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, white supremacist and discriminatory language of any kind—has real consequences and impacts the lives of people in our community and country.”
Jacobs said that she and her fellow commissioners abhor hate speech of any kind and are committed to “tolerance, inclusion and upholding the human rights of our LGBTQ+ community and all people.”
This is not the first time Robinson has aimed caustic remarks at the LGBTQ community. While a GOP candidate for the state’s second highest elected position, the INDY reported that a scan of Robinson’s comments on social media made clear his dislike of gay people, trans people, or the homosexual agenda.
He also expressed deep suspicion of globalism and its goal of undermining the greatness America achieved under Donald Trump, that socialism posed a bigger threat to American lives than the coronavirus and the real enemy were the people lying about the dangers of the pandemic.
Prior to Jacobs reading the board’s unity statement, County Commissioner Chair Brenda Howerton said that “as citizens in this community, we don’t condone any isms.”
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Follow Durham Staff Writer Thomasi McDonald on Twitter or send an email to tmcdonald@indyweek.com.
