GOP candidate proclaimed himself homophobic. Then he claimed he was “persecuted.”

Republican House candidate Kevin Coughlin proudly identified as homophobic when he was in college, but now he’s saying that it was just a joke.

In 1991, when he was president of the student body at Bowling Green State University, he was quoted by two students in an article for the school newspaper saying, “I’m homophobic, I admit it, I have a problem with it.”

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This was amidst a controversy where he was alleged to have discriminated against a candidate for the student senate for his sexual orientation.

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In a guest column he wrote for the student newspaper, Coughlin tried to argue that his words were a joke. “I jokingly said this because I am sick and tired of hearing cries of discrimination from members of the outer fringes of society every time they are turned down for a position or they run into someone who has differing opinions.”

He claimed that the actual quote was slightly different and tinged with sarcasm. “Well, you know why I didn’t appoint him, don’t you? It’s because I’m a homophobe, and I need help,” his correction reads.

He continued to defend himself by saying, “It is true that I do not agree with the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead. I do not shirk from that. But that does not make me stupid, uneducated or homophobic and I’m rather tired of people being persecuted because they hold an opinion.”

“My opinion does not, however, mean that I would ever discriminate against a homosexual,” he wrote. “To me, people are people and as an American, people are entitled to their having opinions without having them twisted into something they’re not.”

David Steeves, the candidate who was turned down for the senate position, believed he was discriminated against after the comments made by Coughlin, something his views had changed on. 

“When Coughlin first told me I did not get the position, I did not plan to take action because I did not think it was because I am gay. It seemed like a plausible explanation that he gave me,” said Steeves.

Coughlin later lost reelection as student body president, partly due to the controversy.

A spokesperson for Coughlin, Cierra Shehorn, told Business Insider that these comments were sarcastic and don’t “reflect his views then, or now.”

Coughlin has previously voted to ban marriage equality during his time in the Ohio legislature and has recently indicated on a conservative questionnaire that he still opposes same-sex marriage.

Shehorn says that he has no intent to change the law, detailing that the survey just reflected his view on religious institutions.

Coughlin previously served a decade in the Ohio Senate and four years in the Ohio House of Representatives.

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