In the first of three televised debates of the primary campaign for North Carolina’s Senate seat, all four candidates could agree on one thing: Climate change is a myth. Or, more colorfully put by candidate Mark Harris, “God controls the climate.”
Harris was in fact the only candidate to elaborate; Tea Party member Greg Brannon, state house Speaker Thom Tillis, and nurse practitioner Heather Grant simply chuckled when the moderator of the April 22 debate asked if climate change was a fact before replying “no.”
News gatherers said Tillis won the “surprisingly staid” debate by default after Brannon and Harris chose not to actively engage their opponents.
For Harris, pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte and president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, climate-change denial is one facet of a far-right platform that began drawing local ire in 2006. Harris chaired the committee that crafted the convention’s policy to sever ties with Baptist churches that “knowingly act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior,” a decision that jettisoned Charlotte’s Myers Park Baptist Church from the organization.
Stephen Shoemaker, senior minister at Myers Park Baptist at the time of its excommunication, wrote in response to the policy, “Our nation needs impassioned moral discourse that serves to knit together the social fabric, rather than tearing it.”
At least for Tuesday’s debate, stifled giggles, it seems, will have to pass for discourse.
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This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2014.
Rich oil baron’s checkbook trumps science every time.
anyone that denies science shouldn’t be on the ballot
If you actually believe in science, you would understand that climate change is real (and has been since whenever you believe the Earth came into existence), but you would also know that it has not been proven that any climate change has been influenced by man’s activities. The Republicans are right for laughing at the question in terms of whether man influences it. So far, no one can prove that, and most studies actually show definitively that man does not influence the climate. Only idiot nutjob liberals with a lack of education think that man is changing our climate.
Dumb,
What was the question asked? Why did you change to subject/topic? They were asked if climate change was real. NOT the impact of man on the change. Do you pay this much attention to Fox?
Time will tell who are the “idiot nut jobs”.
Scientists have had to deal with non believers throughout recorded history. History always proves the scientists were right. At least you aren’t calling them heretics.