It was just last week that we highlighted a few older quotes from Ken Blackwell, who is hoping to become the next head of the Republican National Committee, proclaiming that homosexuality “even defies barnyard logic” and compared gays to arsonists and kleptomaniacs.
Now, Michelangelo Signorile reports that he recently caught up with Blackwell and asked him about the latter quote, which Blackwell defended, claiming that “homosexuality is a compulsion that can be contained, repressed or changed”:
MS: But you realize people were insulted when you compared [homosexuality] to arson and kleptomania. I would like you to explain that because, how does that get into this whole “choice” issue? I mean, kleptomania is a compulsion.
KB: Well, the fact is, you can choose to restrain that compulsion. And so I think in fact you don’t have to give in to the compulsion to be homosexual. I think that’s been proven in case after case after case…
***
KB:Where you and I disagree is that I do not think homosexuality manifested in behavior is a behavior that should in fact make us change the laws of this land.
MS: But many laws have been changed already. The Supreme Court says that homosexual behavior is not illegal. Arson is a crime. If somebody burns your house down, that’s hurting you, hurting other people. The Supreme Court has said if it’s in your bedroom it’s not hurting anybody else.
KB: If in fact you would feel better for me to say to you that, one, I believe homosexuality is a compulsion that can be contained, repressed or changed, and that makes you feel better, then that is what I’m saying in the clearest of terms.
With that kind of a view, it is not hard to understand why Religious Right leaders are lining up behind his candidacy and placing all their hopes for taking back the party in him.
