Tim Kaine, speaking at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday, urged voters to advance LGBT rights by voting for Hillary Clinton for president, as well as Roy Cooper for North Carolina governor. | AP Photo Kaine blasts Pence, McCrory on LGBT issues

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine urged North Carolina voters to go “forward, not backward” on LGBT issues at a rally Wednesday afternoon, pushing them to support not only his running mate Hillary Clinton for president but also Democrat Roy Cooper for governor.

LGBT rights, specifically those of transgender North Carolinians, figures to be a major issue in the state this fall. Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed controversial House Bill 2 in March, a law that, among other things, requires people in government buildings to use the bathroom that matches the gender on their birth certificate.


The public relations fallout from the law has been severe for the state: PayPal announced that it would nix plans to build a new global operations center in Charlotte, and the NBA opted to move its 2017 All-Star Game out of the state. Multiple musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, have canceled planned concerts in the state because of it.

“Now, I know in North Carolina, there’s been some pain over this issue. They snuck through in the legislature this HB 2, and they tried to introduce it kind of in the dead of night,” the Virginia senator said. “You all have stood up in a major way and you’ve said this is not who we are. This is not who North Carolina is. These are not our values. And that’s one of the reasons why North Carolina is so intensely focused on this race.”

Before an enthusiastic crowd in Greensboro, Kaine quoted the preamble to the Constitution's aspiration that the United States strive to form a “more perfect union” and suggested that the battle for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans is the next front in that fight. He also attacked Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, who signed a similarly divisive law as governor of Indiana in 2015 that many said would essentially legalize discrimination against LGBT people.

Kaine recalled a 2006 speech that Pence delivered supporting a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, in which the then-congressman suggested that “societal collapse” would follow the “deterioration of marriage and family.”

Cooper, North Carolina’s attorney general, also spoke. He said HB 2 had damaged the state economically, and he pledged to undo the bill if elected governor over McCrory, who is seeking reelection.

“We’ve just been making progress and overcoming our imperfections and becoming that more perfect union, and one of the most recent battles that’s been really powerful is the battle for LGBT equality,” Kaine said. “It’s just been one more wall that we had to knock down to be all we can be.”

Following the Greensboro rally, a spokesman for McCrory's campaign released a statement slamming Cooper for "trying to trash the state's economy" through surrogates and criticizing both Kaine and the North Carolina attorney general for campaigning against HB 2.

"It's amazing that all Roy Cooper and Tim Kaine want to talk about is bathrooms" McCrory campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said in his statement. "They continue to spew the same false, negative talking points because they want North Carolina to fail to boost their election prospects."