This North Carolina GOP Candidate Is Using Anti-Gay Tropes To Attack Her Opponent

Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee for state superintendent of schools in North Carolina, repeatedly used anti-gay tropes last week to attack her Democratic opponent, Mo Green.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Morrow, who has no experience in public education, attacked Green, the former superintendent of Guilford County public schools, after he received an endorsement from Equality North Carolina, the state’s largest political advocacy organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights.

Green “states he is ‘proudly endorsed’ by Equality NC, whose mission statement is to promote LGBTQ+ power,” she falsely claimed . “NEWSFLASH…the ‘+’ includes PEDOPH*L*A!!”

The plus stands for other identities, such as nonbinary or gender-fluid, that are not encompassed by the letters.

Then on Friday, Morrow, who would be in charge of the state’s schools if she wins, again used the group’s endorsement to further smear Green and malign the organization.

“You should really get to know Mo and Equality NC. They are an organization which promotes allowing boys in girls’ sports and private spaces,” she wrote on Facebook on Friday afternoon. “They want schools to hide pronoun and even name changes from parents. They want to hide curriculum that discusses transgender and sexual activity with five-year-olds.”

The following day, she claimed on Facebook that students and teachers in North Carolina were under attack and that a student was forced to discuss pornography with her classmates.

In Wake County, a video of a speech by a high school student went viral when she claimed she’d been made to discuss a book that contained incest and sexual content. The student didn’t name the book, but news outlets are reporting that it was likely “Tomorrow Is Too