Roy Cooper: Moderate on What? | Eastern NC Now

Roy Cooper: Moderate on What?
by Rev. Mark Creech
RevMarkCreech.org

Roy Cooper has often been described as a moderate. But moderate on what?

That question has renewed importance now that the former North Carolina governor is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, seeking to represent the state in Washington.

Political labels can sometimes obscure more than they reveal. A more useful way to examine a candidate for public office is to look at the record, especially when issues such as life, marriage, religious liberty, family, gambling, education, and human sexuality come before him. The best way to understand what a candidate stands for is not simply to listen to what he says during a campaign, but to examine what he has actually done in public office.

During Roy Cooper’s years as North Carolina attorney general and governor, he took positions and actions that put him at odds with conservative Christians. The following examples highlight some of the most significant disagreements.

And make no mistake: these disagreements are significant

 
Abortion

What Roy Cooper Did:
As governor in 2023, Cooper vetoed Senate Bill 20, which restricted most abortions after 12 weeks. He said he would continue doing everything he could to protect abortion access. The legislature subsequently overrode his veto.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
Conservative Christians generally regard unborn human life as deserving of legal protection. Cooper’s position placed him directly on the opposite side of a central biblical and pro-life objective.

 
Marriage

What Roy Cooper Did:
As attorney general in 2014, Cooper announced that his office would no longer defend North Carolina’s constitutional Amendment One in court after the Fourth Circuit struck down Virginia’s similar marriage ban. He said it was time to stop making arguments he believed would lose.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Evangelicals:
Amendment One was approved by 69% of North Carolina voters in 2012 and defined marriage in state constitutional law as between a man and a woman.

Given the size of that majority, many social conservatives believed the Attorney General had a particular responsibility to mount the strongest legal defense reasonably available. Cooper maintained that intervening federal court decisions had left the state without a viable argument. Nevertheless, many Christian conservatives viewed his decision to stop defending the amendment not only as a rejection of the traditional definition of marriage but also as a failure to uphold the expressed will of North Carolina’s voters.

 
Churches and COVID-19 Restrictions

What Roy Cooper Did:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Cooper’s Executive Order 138 generally required religious services with more than 10 people to be held outdoors unless outdoor gatherings were impossible. Return America, Dr. Ron Baity, Berean Baptist Church, and People’s Baptist Church challenged the restrictions in federal court. In May 2020, a federal judge granted their request for a temporary restraining order, blocking enforcement of the challenged provisions after finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their Free Exercise claim. Because the order applied statewide, churches across North Carolina were effectively free to resume indoor worship without the challenged 10-person limit, though they were still encouraged to observe public-health and social-distancing recommendations.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Evangelicals:
For many conservative Christians, the case became an important religious-liberty issue because churches faced restrictions that did not apply in the same way to many secular activities. Return America did more than publicly object; it became a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit that secured an order preventing enforcement of the restrictions against worship assemblies. The ruling was a significant immediate victory for religious liberty.

 
Church Security

What Roy Cooper Did:
Governor Cooper repeatedly vetoed legislation to expand security options for churches and Christian schools on the same property. He vetoed House Bill 652 in 2020 and Senate Bill 43 in 2021, both addressing concealed carry at places of worship on school property. In 2023, he vetoed Senate Bill 41, which again included church-security protections. However, the General Assembly overrode his veto and enacted the measure. The law was further expanded in 2025 under Governor Josh Stein, when lawmakers overrode another veto and enacted House Bill 193.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
For Return America and many other conservative Christians, this was fundamentally a church-safety and religious-liberty issue. They argued that churches and Christian schools should be able to take reasonable measures to protect worshipers, students, and staff from violent attacks. Return America worked on the issue for several years, and Cooper’s repeated vetoes were viewed as obstacles to that effort. The 2023 override marked a major breakthrough, while the broader 2025 law completed a long-running effort to give churches and nonpublic schools greater authority to provide for their own security.

 
Sports Gambling

What Roy Cooper Did:
In 2023, Governor Cooper signed House Bill 347, which legalized and regulated sports wagering in North Carolina. The measure passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate, with support from members of both parties. When online sports betting went live in 2024, Cooper publicly placed a futures wager on the Carolina Hurricanes to win the Stanley Cup.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
For many conservative Christians, the concern went beyond Cooper’s signature alone. A Republican-controlled General Assembly approved the legalization of sports gambling, and a Democratic governor signed it, making it a bipartisan policy decision. Evangelical organizations that have historically opposed gambling because of concerns about addiction, financial loss, family disruption, and the normalization of wagering therefore had reason to object to both the legislature’s decision to pass the bill and to Cooper’s decision to sign it into law.

 
Women’s Sports

What Roy Cooper Did:
In 2023, Cooper vetoed House Bill 574, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which addressed participation in women’s athletic competition.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
Conservative Christians view sex as a biological reality relevant to athletics and oppose policies they believe compromise women’s competitive opportunities.

 
Gender Transition of Minors

What Roy Cooper Did:
Cooper vetoed House Bill 808 in 2023. The legislation prohibited medical professionals from performing gender-transition surgeries on minors and from prescribing or providing puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to minors for gender transition, subject to limited exceptions. It also barred the use of state funds for those procedures and treatments and created a civil cause of action for minors who received them. The General Assembly later overrode Cooper’s veto, and the measure became law.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Evangelicals:
Conservative Christians believe that children should not undergo medical interventions intended to alter their sex characteristics and view the legislation as an important parental and child-protection issue.

 
Parental Rights

What Roy Cooper Did:
Cooper vetoed Senate Bill 49, the Parents’ Bill of Rights, in 2023. The legislation formally recognized parents’ rights to direct their children’s education, care, upbringing, and moral or religious training; to review educational and medical records; and to make health-care decisions for their minor children, subject to existing law. It also required public schools to provide parents with certain information about their children’s education and physical or mental health, established age-appropriate requirements for instruction on certain topics in kindergarten through fourth grade, and required written parental consent before a health-care practitioner treated a minor. The General Assembly later overrode Cooper’s veto, and the measure became law.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Evangelicals:
Conservative Christians place a strong emphasis on parents’ primary responsibility for the upbringing, education, and moral formation of their children. Cooper’s veto was a significant point of disagreement.

 
Conversion Therapy / State Funding

What Roy Cooper Did:
In 2019, Cooper issued Executive Order 97 directing state agencies to prohibit payment for conversion therapy for minors by providers receiving state or federal funds administered through the Department of Health and Human Services.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
This became a point of disagreement with conservative Christians who believe that questions concerning sexual orientation and gender identity should not be addressed by government in a manner that restricts particular forms of counseling or religiously informed care. Christians viewed the policy as discriminatory in effect because it denied state-supported payment for counseling intended to help a minor resist or change unwanted same-sex attractions or gender identity while permitting counseling that affirmed or facilitated an LGBTQ identity or gender transition.

 
LGBTQ Policy in State Government

What Roy Cooper Did:
Cooper issued Executive Order 24 in 2017 prohibiting employment discrimination in the governor’s administration on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression, and extending related requirements to entities doing business with the state. His administration also established an NC Commission on Inclusion.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
Conservative Christians who distinguish biological sex from gender identity object to government policies that treat gender identity as a protected category alongside sex.

 
HB2 / Bathroom Policy

What Roy Cooper Did:
During his 2016 campaign for Governor, Cooper opposed HB 2 and made repealing the common-sense bathroom bill a central focus. In 2017, Cooper signed legislation repealing the principal statewide bathroom provision of House Bill 2. The repeal removed the statewide rule requiring people in public facilities to use bathrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate and restored certain local authority and protections for LGBT people.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
HB2 became a major cultural and religious issue not only in North Carolina, but across the nation. Cooper’s decision to repeal its principal bathroom provision was welcomed by LGBT-rights advocates but opposed by social conservatives who argue that sex-separated public facilities should be based on biological sex.

 
Private-School Choice

What Roy Cooper Did:
Cooper vetoed House Bill 10 in 2024, legislation that included a major expansion of private-school vouchers. Cooper argued that the measure would divert taxpayer funds from public schools to private-school vouchers.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
 Many conservative Christians support parental choice and private and Christian education and therefore opposed Cooper’s position on expanding public funding for private-school education. The program has since grown substantially: during the 2025–2026 school year, 106,704 North Carolina students received Opportunity Scholarships to help their families pay for private-school tuition and required fees.

 
LGBTQ Recognition and Policy

What Roy Cooper Did:
Cooper’s administration repeatedly issued official proclamations recognizing LGBTQ Pride Month and described his administration as committed to protecting and strengthening LGBTQ rights in North Carolina.

Why It Became a Concern for Conservative Christians:
Conservative Christians hold a traditional Christian understanding of sexuality and marriage. Cooper’s actions represented a broader philosophical disagreement about how government should define and recognize sexuality, gender, and family.

 
What Does the Record Show?

The point of such a review is to put the record in one place.

Admittedly, describing any politician simply by a label such as “moderate” can oversimplify a complicated record.

Nevertheless, when the questions are narrowed to issues that have historically mattered deeply to conservative Christians – those who believe strongly in an orthodox biblical worldview – such as the protection of unborn life, marriage, religious liberty, church security, gambling, parental authority, biological sex, and the role of government in education and sexuality – the record contains numerous instances in which Cooper took positions substantially different from those held by conservative Christian organizations and voters.

That raises a more useful question than whether Roy Cooper is a “moderate.”

Moderate on what?

On these issues, the public record is considerably more informative than the label.

Rev. Mark Creech
Rev. Mark Creech is a longtime pastor and former executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina. He now writes and speaks on issues of faith and culture and serves as Director of Government Relations for Return America.