Opinion: When it comes to Christian identity, actions speak louder than words

Earlier this year, North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson — one of many Republican politicians who built their brand around Christianity — once again made headlines by saying something cruel and decidedly un-Christian.

“If you’re a man on Friday night and all of a sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you,” he said in a speech at a campaign stop in Cary.

This isn’t the first time Robinson has said markedly non-Christian things about the LGBTQ community. In 2021, he called LGBTQ people filth and likened gay sex to bestiality, but these current anti-LGBTQ comments feel especially cruel since much of our country’s current anti-LGBTQ sentiments are aimed at children.

A spokesman for Robinson said his comments “refer to education,” which brings us to the controversial NC-49, the Parental Bill of Rights, the newly enacted law with language that critics fear may have school employees feeling compelled to out students who say they are on the LGBTQ spectrum, which could be dangerous for students who come from homes that have strong anti-LGBTQ sentiments.

More: Opinion: NC Republicans pretend to care but Parents' Bill of Rights will harm LGBTQ youth

Utah's Republican governor modeled Christianity

According to the Trevor Project, 45% of LGBTQ youth, those explicitly targeted in this legislature, have seriously considered suicide in the past year, and nearly 1 in 5 transgender and nonbinary youth attempted suicide.  It seems like all the pro-life Christians suddenly lose interest in youths living once they become non-fetuses with sexual preferences and fluid genders.

There are, however, outliers who choose compassion over hatred.

“Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox wrote when he vetoed a ban on transgender students playing high school sports, pointing out that of the 75,000 high school students playing sports in Utah, only four are transgender. “I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly.”

Now, I haven’t identified as a Christian in quite some time on account of being a sodomite doomed to eternal damnation, but I grew up Irish Catholic and went to a Jesuit college that required me to take multiple credits of high-level theology courses. From where I sit, Cox seems to be embodying actual Christian values. In contrast, Robinson and his ilk seem like the kinds of people who were responsible for Jesus being put to death in the first place: Christians in name only who guise their bigotry as morality.

More: Opinion: This Pride Month, let’s examine why gay people existing trigger some of you

Let us not praise and prioritize terrible words and actions

I nodded in agreement recently while reading an article in the Hollywood Reporter, of all places, profiling Alan Ritchson, the star of one of my recent binge-watches, Amazon Prime’s "Reacher." “Christians today have become the most vitriolic tribe. It’s so antithetical to what Jesus was calling us to be and to do,” Ritchson says in discussing the unwavering Christian support of Donald Trump. “Trump is a racist and a con man, and yet the entire Christian church seems to treat him like he’s their poster child, and it’s unreal. I don’t understand it.”

It boggles my mind, too. And while Ritchson’s quote is a bit of a generalization — there are plenty of Christians who do adhere to what Christianity means and support more progressive viewpoints (it bears mentioning that Ritchson himself is a practicing Christian) — I think even those Christians who don’t fall under the umbrella of Ritchson’s very pointed rhetoric can agree with his befuddlement. Why do so many self-proclaimed Christians consistently praise and prioritize terrible people and actions?

Earlier this year, when asked a question about his state legislature’s preoccupation with the LGBTQ community after the death of LGBTQ teen Nex Benedict, Oklahoma state Senator Tom Woods said, “We are a religious state. We are a religious state, and we are going to fight to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state.” Capitol C-Christians — those who make their identities synonymous with their proclaimed morality —continue to show their true colors.

Pat Brothwell is a former high school teacher and Pennsylvania expat and current writer and marketer living and working in Asheville. His writing has also been featured in the Charlotte Observer, Fast Company and GQ. 

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Mark Robinson often shows bigotry toward LGBTQ community