N&O Reports Lt. Governor Robinson Continues Attacks On Public Schools

Robinson Refers To Public School Educators As “Wicked People” As School Funding Remains In Question

A recent speech from Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson highlights his continued pattern of targeting public school teachers and staff instead of working to strengthen North Carolina’s public schools. Robinson, referring to public schools, said “imagine what will happen if we legalize the rape of our children” and urged parents to “not turn your children over to these wicked people.”

Earlier this year, a report found that as a percentage of the state’s GDP, North Carolina ranked last in the country for public K-12 funding. Still, Mark Robinson and legislative Republicans are pushing legislation that would take even more funding away from public school students to subsidize wealthy parents sending their kids to unaccountable private schools. Now on the campaign trail, the Lieutenant Governor is bashing educators and scaring parents about our public schools instead of trying to improve them when our kids will return in just a few weeks.

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson says gender identity issues are bringing the country to “hell’s gates.”

Public speeches in which Robinson disparages LGBTQ+ people have become par for the course in his political career. Now he’s running in the Republican primary for governor.

He alluded to past controversies in this month’s speech. “A lot of these political folks that work with me, they get nervous when I come stand up here,” Robinson said in his July 9 speech streamed on the YouTube page of Winkler’s Grove Baptist Church in Hickory.

“I don’t know what you get nervous for. You ought to be nervous about the fact that we live in a society where some folks say it’s alright to give pornography to children. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the decline of Western civilization. And I do not believe that if we continue to do it God’s gonna tolerate it long.”

Robinson is anti-abortion, saying at the 2023 March for Life he wants the state to be a “destination for life.” In March 2022, Robinson confirmed that he and his wife, Yolanda, decided to end her pregnancy with an abortion before they were married, saying they made the wrong decision.

“The amount of children we’ve already killed in the womb in this nation is intolerable,” Robinson said in his speech at the church this month. “Imagine what will happen if we legalize the rape of our children. That’s when you ought to get nervous.”

In his speech, Robinson also talked about “leftists” making “stupid laws,” called climate change “junk science” and criticized classroom discussions while he was a student at UNC-Greensboro.

Robinson did not respond to Deal’s comments specifically, but said that churches should “build coalitions” and “not turn your children over to these wicked people …. while we fight to get these schools back in shape.”

Robinson is in a growing Republican primary field along with State Treasurer Dale Folwell, former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker and former state Sen. Andy Wells. Whoever wins the Republican primary will likely face Democratic candidate Josh Stein, who is currently attorney general, in the general election next fall.