School board member censured for seemingly endorsing anti-LGBTQ+ violence with bizarre picture

A North Carolina school board censured one of its Christian members for posting an anti-LGBTQ+ image on social media that showed an American figure assaulting an LGBTQ+ figure. The Christian man defended posting the image, saying he had free speech rights to oppose “woke” cultural issues.

The Mount Airy Board of Education held a special meeting on July 10 to censure board member Randy Moore, a U.S. Army veteran who was appointed to the board in January 2021. Moore had posted a Facebook image of a figure in red, white, and blue colors kicking the midsection of another rainbow-colored figure symbolizing the LGBTQ+ community, The Mount Airy News reported.

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Moore told the publication that he “loves” the LGBTQ+ community but “not their doings,” meaning homosexual behavior — a variation of the classic Christian cliche to “love the sinner, hate the sin.” The cliche isn’t contained in the Bible, and a 2018 study found that Christians who endorsed the cliche had stronger anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes than others.

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The board member then said that he was not “afraid to use rightful speech” despite his role as a “respectful” school board member. Mount Airy is 82.2% white and 11.4% Black, according to 2022 U.S. Census data.

“If anyone, especially this [school] board or superintendent who call themselves Christian thinks I don’t care or thinks I have a personal negative agenda, they have misunderstood,” Moore said. “I am immeasurably grateful for the unwavering support against what some are terming ‘minority over silent majority,’ to wake up against woke.”

“I mean to ensure the community I serve that my number one motive and priority is still to protect the children from physical harm, educational harm, spiritual harm,” he continued, perhaps implying that LGBTQ+ people are a threat to children.

School board members have become more vocally opposed to racial- and LGBTQ+-inclusion in schools since the 2021 election campaign of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). Youngkin’s campaign highlighted “parents’ rights” for opposing so-called “woke” anti-racist education in schools. Concurrently, parents in the state’s Loudoun County School District shut down board meetings through angry mass protests against transgender-inclusive school policies.

Such protests have become more common in school districts thanks to anti-LGBTQ+ groups like Moms for Liberty and governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis (R), the likes of which have accused LGBTQ+ educators and allies of “grooming” and “indoctrinating” students for sexual abuse and “gender confusion.”

In defending his own anti-LGBTQ+ views, Moore added that, “One day, the rainbow will no longer be misused by sinners to boast in their sin. The rainbow will be reserved for the glory of God alone when Christ returns and makes all things new.”

He is one of several Christians who have expressed interest in “reclaiming the rainbow” from the LGBTQ+ community. In the Bible, God displayed a rainbow as a peace offering after drowning nearly all the humans on Earth for being evil.