US Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence (Ethan Miller/Getty)

Vice President Mike Pence’s wife Karen Pence travelled to North Carolina to campaign for a GOP candidate who thinks things were better when gay sex was a crime.

On Monday, the Second Lady of the United States travelled to the state to stump for GOP candidate Mark Harris, an evangelical pastor with extreme anti-LGBT views.

Harris, who is running for the US House of Representatives in North Carolina’s 9th District, has lamented the “moral decay” of the United States going from the criminalisation of homosexuality to the so-called “criminalisation of Christianity.”

Speaking in 2015, he claimed: “We have watched in one generation where homosexuality was once criminalised to now we see the criminalisation of Christianity. And I could go on and on with the entertainment, with the education, with the life issue.”

Right Wing Watch reports that the candidate is a member of the Family Research Council’s Watchmen on the Wall network. The Family Research Council is a listed anti-LGBT hate group whose leader has been condemned for comparing gay people to Nazis.

But despite Harris’ extreme anti-LGBT beliefs, Karen Pence spoke at a Women for Mark Harris rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday.

Pence told the rally: “Mike and I support Mark Harris for Congress. I’m here because this race is so important.

“He’s the kind of strong, principled conservative leader who will stand with this administration to deliver results. He’s a husband, a father, a pastor, a leader. He has devoted his life to his service to others… a devoted servant of God.”

At the event she gave an interview to internet evangelical pundit Elizabeth Johnston, known as the ‘Activist Mommy.’

Pence said: “Every single vote in every single race is going to count in this election. Women need to vote in this election.

“It’s very important that we keep the majority in the House, or the president’s agenda is going to be stopped short.”

Speaking about the White House’s views on abortion, she said: “This resident is promises made and promises kept, and if we don’t elect Mark Harris, we’re going to stop that agenda. It’s going to be stopped dead in its tracks.”

“I’m here because this race is so important. The road to the majority leads right through North Carolina. This seat, this race, it is critical to keeping the majority in Congress.”

A report recently exposed Pence’s role in a string of quiet anti-LGBT actions by the Trump administration.

The Human Rights Campaign report looked in-depth at Pence’s record on LGBT rights as a candidate, as Governor of Indiana, and as vice president and found he has demonstrated a “consistent” approach to dismantling discrimination protections.

It summarised his alleged support for gay ‘cure’ therapy, his unwillingness to condemn businesses who fire people for being gay, and his signing of a controversial Indiana law that gave businesses the right to discriminate against gay people on the grounds of religion.