A Brief History of North Carolina Homophobia

We would never suggest that all North Carolinians are homophobic or transphobic. In fact, we believe the vast majority are not. But a few prominent anti-LGBT types were sullying the state's reputation long before the passage of the infamous House Bill 2, and some of them, along with some new faces, lobbied for that legislation, signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory (top right) in March. Click through to read about the hateful actions of Jesse Helms, Franklin Graham, Patrick Wooden, and more from the Tar Heel State.

With a population of about 270,000, Greensboro is North Carolina's third largest city (Charlotte is the largest, and Raleigh, the state capital, is second), and is generally a liberal place, being home to a University of North Carolina campus and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. But liberalism did not extend to gay people in the closeted 1950s. When Paul Calhoun became Greensboro's police chief in the summer of 1956, he sought to purge the city of gays. He claimed his purpose was to "remove these individuals from society who would prey upon our youth," but his effort resulted in arrests almost exclusively for sexual activity that took place in private between consenting adults. "There had always been homosexuals, but the police never pursued them with such intensity, never before and never since," defense attorney Lawrence Egerton told the Greensboro News & Record in 2007. "The truth? It was a long, hot summer, and the police had nothing to do." The investigation finally ended when informants began naming prominent people in the city — those whose prosecution would offend the politically powerful. The less prominent were not so fortunate. In February 1957, a grand jury in Guilford County, which includes Greensboro, indicted 32 men on charges of engaging in "the abominable and detestable crime against nature" — that is, having gay sex. The trials that went on that winter and spring saw them all convicted, with 24 receiving prison terms of five to 20 years, some of them spending time on chain gangs. In the process, lives were ruined; as an example, the News & Record article noted, one of the defendants was cut off from his son for the rest of his life and dishonorably discharged from the Army. He also never registered to vote, because he was afraid that it would bring up his criminal record. "The legacy of the trials," the News & Record concluded, "was denial and fear."
 

 

The men in the Greensboro "gay purge" were charged under the state's sodomy law, enacted in 1836. It outlawed "the abominable and detestable crime against nature, not to be named among Christians, with either man or beast." Until 1868, it included a provision calling for the death penalty as punishment. That was replaced with 20 to 60 years in prison, then with five to 60. Courts held that the law covered oral as well as anal sex. Drew Pearson, who would grow up to be a famous political columnist, was arrested under the law as a teenager in the early 20th century but was acquitted. Originally a liberal, he became, in the 1960s, noted for using his columns to accuse politicians of being gay — which had negative implications in his mind and the minds of most of his readers. North Carolina legislators voted down attempts to repeal the sodomy law, but it finally, like those in other states, was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. Some North Carolina police and sheriff's departments, though, continued to enforce the law for a time, claiming that Lawrence applied only to sex in private, so they could arrest people seeking sex in parks, for instance. There haven't been reports of attempts to enforce it in recent years, but it does remain on the books, which is the case in several other states as well. “Court rulings can prevent enforcement of a statue, but it doesn’t wipe the statute off the books,” said Maxine Eichner, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told the campus newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, this year. “For this statute to be wiped off the books, it has to be repealed by the legislature, and they sometimes repeal outdated laws, but certainly not always.”

 

Among the most prominent anti-LGBT activists based in North Carolina is Philip "Flip" Benham, director of Operation Save America, which grew out of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. Benham, a former minister, moved the organization's headquarters to Concord, N.C., in 2002. Benham is not only fiercely opposed to abortion rights; he is devoutly anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT. In 2003, for instance, Benham screamed at participants all the way through a mass commitment ceremony at Charlotte Pride. He descended on Charlotte Pride again in 2011, preaching over a loudspeaker about the sin of homosexuality. In 2014, after marriage equality came to North Carolina, he disrupted several same-sex couples' weddings. Just last year, he accosted a young transgender woman as she was leaving a restroom at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center, calling her "young man," "punk," and "pervert," and claiming she was endangering children by using the women's bathroom. And he has claimed "the homosexual agenda" is "the devil's agenda." Not surprisingly, Benham has endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 presidential race. Also not surprisingly, he has passed his views on to his sons. Read on. 

Flip Benham's telegenic twin sons, David and Jason, are real estate entrepreneurs who famously had an HGTV show pulled out from under them in 2014 because of their history of anti-LGBT activism. It's quite a history, and they're still adding to it. In 2004 they sought to persuade the Charlotte City Council to deny a permit for an LGBT Pride parade.
"This is filth, this is vile and should not be allowed in our city,” David said at the time. (The brothers are actually based in nearby Concord.) In 2015, when Charlotte first considered an LGBT-inclusive public accommodations ordinance, David called it “depraved” and the latest example of “the radical gay agenda’s plan to change America.” The ordinance failed to pass then, but it came up again this year and passed — despite the efforts of the Benhams and other far-right types, In the wake of its passage, the twins posted a Facebook video in which Jason said the two could now “declare ourselves women” and play in the WNBA. David termed the ordinance “ungodly,” said it was the “direct result of God’s judgment” for legal abortion, and asserted that it would lead to “young women and girls” being “victimized.” The state legislature quickly passed HB 2 to prevent the ordinance from going into effect and to block other cities from adopting similar ones. The brothers have, naturally, praised that move. "North Carolina is showing the nation what operating under God looks like," Jason said at a rally this month.

The Rev. Billy Graham is not particularly known for anti-LGBT activism; although, as a biblical literalist, he has said homosexuality is a sin, he never made that a hallmark of his preaching. Not so with his son and heir, Charlotte-based Franklin Graham, who took over as CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 2000. He has said that when gays and lesbians adopt children, they're "recruiting." He has praised Russia's "gay propaganda" law. He has said President Obama is promoting "immorality" by calling on nations abroad to treat their LGBT residents as first-class citizens. He pulled his association's bank accounts from Wells Fargo because of the company's LGBT-inclusive advertising, only to move them to another LGBT-friendly institution, BB&T, and he gave a convoluted explanation, saying Wells Fargo's ads amounted to advocacy. He spoke out against the Charlotte LGBT rights ordinance before it was adopted this year, calling it "wicked" and "filthy." Amid the outcry over HB 2's revocation of the ordinance, he has not backed down. “Men have no business using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. Period,” he posted to Facebook Friday. “It’s not up to us to decide our sex—God determines that.”

Another North Carolina–based minister, Rev. Patrick Wooden, gives Flip Benham and Franklin Graham a run for their money when it comes to homophobia. In 2012, as the state prepared to vote on Amendment One, which wrote a ban on same-sex marriage into the North Carolina constitution, he made many graphic and inflammatory comments about anal sex. In an interview with antigay activist Peter LaBarbera, he claimed that many gay men must wear diapers for incontinence as a result of anal sex and offered undocumented anecdotes about objects including cell phones and baseball bats being removed from gay men’s rectums. He has also said, “The God of the Bible made the human sperm, the God of the Bible designed it, and it was not designed to be emptied into an area that is filled with feces,” and that gay sex would “most certainly mean the extinction of the human race.”

And about Amendment One: Wooden and his ilk succeeded in persuading voters to approve it. North Carolina had banned same-sex marriage by statute in the 1990s, when it looked like Hawaii would be the first state with marriage equality. But antigay forces in the state felt the need for a stronger ban, so they sought to put it in the state's constitution; North Carolina was the only Southern state without a constitutional ban. Its approval by voters came a hard-fought battle that even saw the aforementioned Billy Graham make a rare political statement by taking out a full-page newspaper ad supporting it; with Graham being in his 90s and largely retired, some wondered if he actually authored the ad, or if it came from his more outspokenly homophobic son, Franklin. At any rate, despite opposition throughout the nation, including from the likes of President Obama and Vice President Biden, Amendment One passed by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent. At a rally celebrating the vote, Tami Fitzgerald, chairwoman of Vote for Marriage NC, said, “We are not antigay — we are pro-marriage. And the point, the whole point is simply that you don’t rewrite the nature of God’s design for marriage based on the demands of a group of adults.”

Despite Amendment One, North Carolina couldn't avoid the marriage equality juggernaut for long. In 2014, two federal judges found the state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Its attorney general had ceased defending the ban, but North Carolina's two highest-ranking legislators — Senate President Phil Berger (right) and House Speaker Thom Tillis — sought to intervene in the case and appeal. One of the judges OK'd their request, but they still couldn't stop marriage equality from coming to the state.

After the courts brought marriage equality to North Carolina, some public employees objected. Some magistrates, county officials who among other things are empowered to perform marriages, didn't want to provide the service to same-sex couples. The legislature responded by passing a law that allows magistrates to opt out of all marriage ceremonies if they have faith-based objections. Gov. Pat McCrory (pictured) actually vetoed the measure, but legislators overrode his action. The exemption lasts for six months for a given magistrate but is renewable. The law is now being challenged in court by couples who say the magistrates' religious beliefs shouldn't interfere with their government duties.

North Carolina lawmakers have turned back attempts to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, or to include crimes based on these traits in hate-crimes law. Of a late-'90s attempt to expand the hate-crimes statute, Bill Brooks of the far-right Family Policy Council told The Charlotte Observer, "It’s an attempt by [gays] to gain legitimacy, a legal legitimacy, for their lifestyle." This year, amid the backlash over HB 2, Gov. McCrory issued an executive order banning anti-LGBT discrimination — covering employees of state government only. It was cold comfort to other LGBT North Carolinians.

No discussion of homophobia emanating from North Carolina would be complete without a mention of Jesse Helms, the late U.S. senator who's in the running for king of all homophobes. In the 1980s and 1990s, Helms used his national platform to demonize gay men with AIDS, saying at one point, "It's their deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct that is responsible for the disease." He fought federal funding for AIDS research and managed to get the U.S. to block entry into the county by HIV-positive visitors and immigrants, a policy that remained in place until President Obama's administration. Helms's hostility led activists to famously tent his home with a giant condom. He was also known for condemning homoerotic art and its funding by the federal government. Helms, who got his start as a right-wing TV and radio commentator in his native North Carolina, served 30 years in the Senate, from 1973 to 2003; in addition to being antigay, he espoused anti-abortion, anti-Communist, and often outright racist views. He died in 2008 at age 86, lionized by many conservatives but unmourned by most LGBT Americans.

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