It’s time now for a fact-check of North Carolina politics. The Republican candidate for North Carolina superintendent is accusing gay-rights advocates of promoting pedophilia and saying her opponent won't keep kids safe. Michele Morrow wrote in a post on X last month that Equality NC’s mission statement is to promote LGBTQ+ power and she added that the + includes pedophilia. Morrow’s post was in response to her opponent, Democrat Mo Green, stating he’s been endorsed by Equality NC. Paul Specht of WRAL joins me now for a closer look.
Marshall Terry: For those who may not be familiar with this race, just who are Michele Morrow and Mo Green?
Paul Specht: Right. Michele Morrow is the Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, and Mo Green is the Democratic candidate — and they have wildly different backgrounds. Mo Green has been an education superintendent at the county level, whereas Michele Morrow — her background is as a nurse, and she has children that she has home-schooled. So she comes to this race as an outside critic of the public school system — someone who's hoping to bring various reforms.
Terry: And who is this group that has endorsed Mo Green — Equality NC? And, what is their mission?
Specht: Equality North Carolina is a group that champions rights for the LGBTQ community. Those are people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or other identities. They've been in North Carolina politics for some time. They offer endorsements to candidates. They're based in Raleigh. People running for office — often Democrats — will seek out their endorsements in their races, especially high-profile races.
Terry: So just what does that "+" mean? And, does it have anything to do with pedophilia?
Specht: No — that "+" we were told by Equality NC, and other advocacy groups, it includes people who are not included in that LGBTQ ... the list, it can be long. Perhaps some identities that our listeners may have heard of are asexual people who don't have any sexual desire; or intersex, meaning people who are actually born with a variety of differences in their sex traits and even their anatomy; and then there's non-binary people, who don't identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Those are just three examples of what the "+" includes. It does not include pedophilia, despite what Michele Morrow said. She's one of a handful of conservatives who have made the claim like this in recent years. PolitiFact has looked into it and debunked it each time.
Terry: So how did you rate this claim from Michele Morrow?
Specht: We rated this "pants on fire" — and that means that it's not only false, but according to our definition of the rating, that it's ridiculous. And we found it to be ridiculous because there's been no proof. And we've debunked this multiple times that this advocacy group accepts pedophiles as a legally protected minority. That's just ludicrous and there's no evidence to support it. So that's why it got the "pants-on-fire" rating.
