Michigan Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema tells Newsmax he will “stand firm” behind his recent controversial remarks about homosexuality, adding that gay marriage would be “detrimental to society.”
Agema, a former Michigan state representative, sent a Facebook post referring to an article by a Dr. Frank Joseph asserting that homosexuals lived a “filthy lifestyle” and are responsible for “half the murders in large cities.”
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He followed that up with another post warning that accepting “this lifestyle” in the GOP platform will “cause great harm to society.”
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Agema discusses the controversy his comments have sparked.
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“First of all, the Supreme Court’s in the middle of this discussion of marriage between homosexuals so it’s pertinent that we discuss this issue now.
“There are a lot of studies that are available and I happened to run across this one [by Dr. Joseph] on the Internet and I posted it. After I posted it some [critics] quoted me as saying certain things that I didn’t say but were in the post.
“They said I said it’s a filthy lifestyle. I didn’t say that. They quoted me as saying that but that was in his response to a 1987 rally, a gay pride march, and he was talking to a homosexual at the time. Another one was the 50 percent of crime and so forth that occurred in big cities was from homosexuals. Well that was a magistrate from New York and that was what he saw that particular year in the study.
“You’re not hearing the statistics from the media, so it’s very important that we get those statistics out there. The homosexuals don’t want to hear these statistics and they tend to just hammer those people who bring them out.”
Agema says some of the statistics in the study he cited have been backed up by the Centers for Disease Control, American Family Association, the American Medical Journal and others.
Those statistics are “not exactly the same” as Dr. Joseph’s, “but it definitely tells you that the health of the homosexual community is in great jeopardy and that’s the whole issue here,” Agema maintains.
“It’s not about hate; it’s about concerns for the health and cost of society — schools, churches, and most of all, your kids. That’s why I posted that.
“What I was a little surprised about is the Republican Party platform has that marriage is between a man and a woman and there are those within the party that want to move that a little bit to the left. But my stand is if you move to the left on this issue you’re going to lose your base and it’s going to cost you more votes.
“Every problem in our nation has been traced back to the elimination of our traditional values that made this country great. If we don’t stand now on this issue we’re going to lose our base.”
Asked if he really thinks there is a higher risk for health problems in the gay community, Agema responds: “I don’t think so. I know so.
“My attitude is you’ve got to know what dangers are ahead of us if [gay marriage] passes in our Supreme Court and what you can expect in our society and with our kids, what they’re going to be taught. Are churches going to be shut down if they don’t do gay marriage?
“Again, this is not about hate, it’s about getting the facts out about the detrimental effects, health effects, of homosexuality and how it affects society in general and them in particular.”
Several congressional Republicans have come out in support of gay marriage, and some in the GOP are calling on the party to be more inclusive. Asked if he believes his stance is helping the Republican Party to be more inclusive, Agema tells Newsmax:
“Just as [Mike] Huckabee and [Rick] Santorum said, if you want to include this movement to the left, you will lose your base. Because our basic base understands that this is not the direction the Republican Party should go. We don’t want to become a Republican Party lite. We want to stand on the principles that we have stood on for years, and it is part of the Republican National Committee platform that marriage is between a man and a woman.
“If the libertarians and the more liberal people in the Republican Party were aware of all of these studies and statistics and facts, they’d be swayed to the conclusion we don’t want marriage between two men or two women because it’s detrimental to society.”
There is a movement in Michigan to get Agema to resign his post as a national committeeman. But Agema insists: “I’m not going to resign because of this. This is something I’ll stand firm on.
“The public needs to know about the consequence of this lifestyle, how it affects society in general.
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“I said I want to recruit people that are fiscal conservatives, constitutional conservatives, and moral conservatives, and I want them to pull the party back to the right a little. We’ve been dragged to the left by the Democratic Party.
“There’s no way the Republican Party’s ever going to get left of the Democratic Party to obtain votes. If people want to attempt to do that, we’ll lose the party as a whole.”
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