GOP Congressional Candidate Once Questioned If Careers Were ‘Healthiest Pursuit’ for Women

Mark Harris, who won the GOP primary for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, delivered a 2013 sermon in which he questioned if careers were the “healthiest pursuit” for women, according to ABC News. Democratic PAC American Bridge uncovered the sermon, in which Harris goes on to say that “In our culture today, girls are taught from grade school that we tell them that what is most honorable in life is a career, and their ultimate goal in life is simply to be able to grow up and be independent of anyone or anything...But nobody has seemed to ask the question that I think is critically important to ask: Is that a healthy pursuit for society?...Is that the healthiest pursuit for our children? Is that the healthiest pursuit for the sexes in our generation?” In an earlier section, Harris states that “only one title is given to a woman in all of scripture... the title given to a woman is ‘helper.’”

A spokesperson for Harris, who made headlines for being the first insurgent candidate to oust an incumbent in 2018, told ABC that the comments were taken out of context: “Within the proper context, Mark absolutely stands by his personal statements and his admonition to young ladies that they can do anything they want to do and be anything that want to be while encouraging them to remember there is no higher calling than to be a mother and wife just as young men should be encouraged to remember there is no higher calling than to be a husband and father.” Harris will face democratic nominee and former Marine Corps veteran Dan McCready in November.