Mark Robinson visited sex shops, paid for an abortion, and needs the Christian vote
Mark Robinson visited sex shops, paid for an abortion, and needs the Christian vote
His latest controversy is part of a larger hypocritical pattern
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Mark Robinson, the right-wing extremist now running to be governor of North Carolina (and current Lt. Governor of the state), has spent years going all in on Christian Nationalism. He’s also a huge fan of adult sex shops, according to a stunning piece in The Assembly.
Robinson wrote in his 2022 memoir that he found Jesus in the late 1980s. Yet, in the 1990s and early 2000s, when he was far more obscure, he spent his free time frequenting sex shops to the point that he was well known as a regular customer.
[Employee Louis] Money, 52, told The Assembly that Robinson came in as often as five nights a week to watch porn videos in a private booth.
Five other men who said they were former employees or customers during this period also told The Assembly that Robinson visited two of these stores: Gents Video & News and I-40 Video & News.
In addition, Money said Robinson purchased “hundreds” of bootleg porn videos that Money sold on the side.
“He was good for at least one a week,” Money said. But Money said Robinson didn’t pay for the last one, which he described as a compilation of “super hardcore” films he acquired in New York City that were too risqué to be sold in North Carolina.
Five nights a week?! Hundreds of videos? I don’t even care about the subject. How does anyone have that much free time?!
Anyway, his campaign denies all this happened, calling the story “bullshit,” though they admit the two men do know each other for reasons that don’t involve seedy sex shops. Money’s recollections of Robinson, however, are very specific: “I know he might have problems with gay people, but I don’t think he has problems with lesbians,” he said. Even if Money was making it all up, that doesn’t account for the other employees who also have very specific (and sometimes fond!) memories of Robinson’s visits to their stores.
This really shouldn’t be a story. A man’s private life shouldn’t be a concern for anyone, especially when it’s legal and consensual, as this was. But when your entire political brand is promoting Christian extremism, and painting yourself as the Christian savior the state needs, and treating LGBTQ people as sexual deviants, and using the word “pornography” to describe what public school teachers supposedly “feed your children,” then your non-Jesus-y actions are bound to become a campaign issue.
Mark Robinson made faith the center of his political persona. Now that it’s abundantly clear that what he says is very different from what he does, it’s about damn time his hypocrisy caught up to him.
It’s not like this is new. Robinson’s embrace of GOP extremism has been his calling card for years—and his rhetoric has often been cloaked in faith, like in 2021, when he told the crowd at a Stand Up For America rally, “Christian patriots of this nation will own this nation and rule this nation.”
It gets worse. Robinson is someone who, in the past few years alone, has said that forced religion in public schools could prevent mass shootings, that transgenderism and homosexuality amount to filth, that the trans movement is demonic and full of Antichrist spirit, and that straight couples are superior to gay ones. At a June rally, he ranted “Some folks need killing.”
He also denies the Holocaust. Really. In 2018, in a Facebook post denouncing gun safety measures, he wrote that the “foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”
When it comes to abortion, he’s been equally extreme, saying in a 2021 speech that once a woman is pregnant, its not [her] body anymore. His campaign website once made clear that, “As a Christian, Mark will honor the sanctity of life.” (That phrase no longer appears on his campaign website, as abortion rights have become a major unifying force for Democrats.)
Not that Robinson cares about “sanctity,” either, since he paid for an abortion in 1989—after he had supposedly found Jesus. His wife is no angel either; she screwed the state out of money and also stiffed the Girl Scouts. Lying in the name of Jesus is a family business, apparently…
When that abortion story came out, North Carolina Republicans refused to comment because they said it was a “personal matter.” They wanted to respect Robinson’s privacy… while at the same time pushing for policies to restrict medical options for women who wouldn’t get the same privacy. All these people consider every abortion akin to murder, yet they were extremely sympathetic to a guy who, in their minds, committed murder all because he was on their side.
That’s why they’re not commenting on the sex shop allegations.
The irony is that Robinson’s life represents the future that progressives are fighting for—one where reproductive freedom and sexual choices are private matters. Robinson is living proof that “sinners,” at least how conservative Christians use the word, can prosper. Robinson climbed the political ladder in large part because no one cared about his sexual interests and because the abortion he paid for allowed him to pursue the life he wanted. But now the only way he can become governor is by telling Christian audiences that the sort of actions he’s taken his entire life are evil and disqualifying… for everyone else, anyway.
No one expects a politician to be perfect. But Robinson is proof that, in the Republican Party, the truth never matters. Neither does hypocrisy. As long as you deny, deny, deny—and attack the people who point out what you did—gullible conservative voters will always treat you like a king.
Kudos to New York magazine for summarizing Robinson’s denial of this story with a killer line: “He strenuously denies that as well as the Holocaust.”
Can you say, "hypocrite," boys and girls? I KNEW that you could!
Damn. Yet another chapter in that bestseller, "Every Accusation is a Confession," available at your favorite bookstore (if you can find one!). Agreed, ordinarily, this shouldn't be a story ... but when someone runs for public office, spouting vitriol about pornography and abortion while indulging in both, yeah, I'd say the public has every right to know about that.
As for Mark's protests to the contrary? Well, Mark, your actions are screaming so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying!
I believe the employees. Traveling outside of town to "sin" so no one from church sees you is very on brand for fundie men.