After months of deliberating, Southern Baptist pastor Mark Harris announced that he will run for US Senate in North Carolina as a Republican challenger to Kay Hagan. Harris’ wife described his Senate bid as “God’s will” and claimed that “the kind of preparation God has given Mark in ministry is the kind of leadership that is needed in a legislative body.”
As we’ve noted, Harris was behind the successful campaign to amend North Carolina’s constitution to include a ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions. No stranger to anti-gay rhetoric, the Republican candidate recently sat down with Wayne Powers on “Speak Out Charlotte,” where he insisted that being gay is a choice.
“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,” Harris said. “That is a choice.”
After Powers wondered why someone would choose to be gay when they will most likely face discrimination and ostracization, Harris said that “it’s kind of like if you get down to the issue of the evidence of global warming, you’ve got scientists on both sides; you have the medical community on both sides.”
Harris may want to find a new analogy, as there is indeed a consensus among climate scientists on the existence of man-made climate change.
