Legislatures across the country are debating hot-button issues, such as restricting abortions and same-sex marriages, that are being pushed by social conservatives.

The South Dakota legislature recently banned abortions, and lawmakers in many other states are considering abortion-related bills. School boards in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa have made headlines debating whether to teach intelligent design along with evolution. Florida was divided over the Terri Schiavo case last year involving right-to-die questions.

But so far the contentious social issues have largely remained off North Carolina's legislative agenda. That might seem surprising in a state that fostered the career of former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the heroes of the religious right. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has described North Carolina as "the buckle on the Bible Belt."

Part of the explanation is in which party controls Raleigh. The agenda of the religious right has been pushed largely by Republicans. But North Carolina is one of the few Southern states where Democrats have controlled both the state legislature and the governor's mansion throughout this decade.

Most North Carolinians go to church and believe in the Bible, polls show. But North Carolina has always been a more nuanced state on social issues than many imagine. Take abortion.

In 1968, North Carolina became the second state to legalize abortions. Until the mid-'90s, North Carolina was the only state in the South -- and one of just 13 in the country -- to fund abortions for poor women.

The more liberal view on abortion was partly due to the influence of four-term Gov. Jim Hunt, who swung conservative on the death penalty and business but was more liberal on feminist issues such as abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Even Helms has acknowledged that his strong anti-abortion stance was the position that he had the most difficulty explaining to his constituents.

North Carolina has some history of defying conventional wisdom on social issues.

During the great evolution controversy in the 1920s, there was a mass movement in churches to outlaw the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in public schools. In 1924, North Carolina Gov. Cameron Morrison banned a biology textbook that discussed evolution from public high schools.

Evolution opponents were victorious in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, site of the famous Scopes trial. But anti-evolution bills died in the North Carolina legislature after strong lobbying by university officials, newspapers and others.

One of the leading opponents was state Rep. Sam Ervin Jr., a future U.S. senator and a conservative Democrat who delivered in 1925 one of the more memorable speeches in legislative history. Ervin used both humor and reason to undercut the anti-evolution bill, calling it "an attempt to limit freedom of speech."

"I know nothing about evolution," Ervin said. "Neither do I care anything about it. To be very frank with you, gentlemen of this House, I don't see but one good feature in this thing, and that is that it will gratify the monkeys to know they are absolved from all responsibility for the conduct of the human race."