GOP congressional nominee once fondly remembered a time when homosexuality was 'criminalized'

Gay marriage legalization.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris thinks this generation has ruined morality, what with decriminalizing homosexuality and all those new ideas.

At least that's what the North Carolina pastor turned politician said in 2015. Previously unreported video published by Media Matters shows Harris vehemently declaring that America is "floundering in moral decay" thanks to homosexuality, divorce, and "the life issue."

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Take Harris' comments at a 2015 religious freedom rally, which also featured the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as a speaker. At the event, Harris lamented how America is "sliding from a nation who once shared a moral vision based on Judeo-Christian ethic to a nation floundering in moral decay," a video from Media Matters shows. That's partly because the U.S. has transitioned from "one generation where homosexuality was once criminalized, to now we see the criminalization of Christianity."

While those comments were made in 2015, Harris' outlook hasn't exactly changed. In a recent interview with Roll Call, Harris defended his 2013 declaration that homosexuality is "a choice." He's also consistently preached that women should "submit" to their husbands and "get over this inequality thing," per Roll Call.

In a tweet, Harris' Democratic opponent Dan McCready made sure to slam those thoughts as "out of step with this district and this century."

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.