N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein at a campaign stop Wednesday at Rocky Mount’s Word Tabernacle Church urged a gathering of ministers and area residents to rally support for him in his bid for the state’s chief executive job.
Stein, who is the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor, is facing off against Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who won the Republican Party’s gubernatorial nomination in the March primary election.
Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat and a Nash County native who is prohibited by state law from seeking a third consecutive four-year term, has already endorsed Stein.
Stein, who stumped in Rocky Mount during the primaries, was in the city again Wednesday to launch what his campaign team calls, “Faith Leaders for Stein.”
Stein used a speaker’s podium in a room at Word Tabernacle to state his belief that voters in North Carolina in the Nov. 5 general election are going to have “an incredibly stark choice” of two competing visions.
Stein said that he believes his and his team’s vision is “forward looking and inclusive” and Robinson’s vision is “divisive and hateful.”
Robinson has appealed to scores of conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump with a hard-hitting style of speaking, but Robinson also has been a subject of controversy in stating positions on hot-button issues.
“He says the most awful things about other human beings, absolutely contrary to our understanding that we are all children of God,” Stein said about Robinson at Wednesday’s gathering.
Specifically, Stein, among his remarks, said that Robinson is a candidate who said that survivors of shootings at schools are paid crisis actors, that women are not called to lead and that the civil rights movement was “crap.”
Stein also said that Robinson wants to ban abortions with no exceptions.
A news report stated that Robinson once hailed banning abortions as his top priority and that, for him, there is no compromise.
The report quoted Robinson’s office as since saying that he supports legislation that could ban abortion after a heartbeat is detected, but with exceptions for cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk.
Stein on Wednesday said that he understands people have different views about abortion.
“But we have to respect women and their ability to make their own decisions after talking with their medical provider, with their loved ones, with their faith leader,” Stein said. “What I do know is that Mark Robinson should not be in the room telling a woman what she has to do.”
Stein also said that Robinson denies the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump lost his re-election bid to current President Joe Biden.
Stein also said that Robinson denies the Holocaust.
“We must deny him the governorship of our state that we love,” Stein said to applause and cheers. “And this is a challenge that I am ready for.”
A news report stated that Robinson via social media once called reports of the Holocaust “hogwash” and once said that the figure of 6 million Jews killed by then-Nazi Germany was false.
The report quoted Robinson as since saying that he has never been antisemitic and has never had anything against Jews. Stein is Jewish, and at Wednesday’s gathering, the rabbi of the temple in Raleigh where he worships introduced him.
Overall, Stein said that, “Right now, in North Carolina, we know things are tough, but we know this: The people of North Carolina are always worth fighting for.”
He said that those who are worth fighting for include teachers who, at their own cost, purchase school supplies for their students. Stein said those North Carolinians worth fighting for also includes first responders like the four killed in an April 29 shooting in Charlotte.
Parents working two jobs for a better future for their children and students taking night classes at a community college to learn a new trade are also included in that group of people worth fighting for, Stein said.
During the gathering and prior to Stein’s speech, Bishop Shelton Daniel of Greater Joy Baptist Church off Nashville Road gave remarks and told the attendees that he wanted them to lock in and be aware of the enormity of the task ahead for faith leaders for Stein.
“This is an emergency,” Daniel said.
More specifically, Daniel said, “We’ve got to not be confused in November” and clarified his position by noting that “This is what I call a state of emergency.”
The Rev. James Gailliard, a former legislator who is senior pastor at Word Tabernacle, also gave remarks before Stein spoke.
“Conservative voices, far-right voices, Republican voices have co-opted the language of faith,” Gailliard said. “They have acted as if they’re the only ones that know the Lord — and it is incumbent upon us to leverage our voice, our faith voice.”
Gailliard said he hoped Wednesday’s gathering could accomplish two objectives.
“I’m hoping the first thing we can get accomplished today is just to agree that our voice as a faith community has a viable place in public policy,” Gailliard said.
He added that the second thing he hopes the attendees can agree on is that “not only our faith voices have a place in public policy, but as we identify the public policy things that matter, to identify the best candidate that can make sure they are delivering on those policy positions.”
Gailliard said that is why the faith leaders were gathered together Wednesday.
“When I look at the landscape of the things that matter, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Josh Stein is the next governor of the state of North Carolina,” he said.
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