Tennessee State Senator Stacey
Campfield on Thursday lost his GOP primary to Richard Briggs, a
Knoxville cardiac surgeon.
Campfield trailed Briggs by more than
8,000 votes.
Campfield's support for contentious
bills aimed at the gay community attracted nationwide attention.
He pushed for passage of a
controversial bill which sought to outlaw the discussion of sexual
minorities in Tennessee's public schools before the ninth grade. It
was dubbed the “Don't Say Gay” bill.
In 2012, he infamously stated that
“AIDS came from the homosexual community.”
“It was one guy screwing a monkey, if
I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. … It was an
airline pilot, if I recall,” he said on Sirius XM radio.
“My understanding is that it is
virtually – not completely, but virtually – impossible to
contract AIDS through heterosexual sex. … [It is] very rarely
[transmitted vaginally].”
In a blog post Friday, Campfield
embedded a video of Frank Sinatra singing “My Way” and wrote
“that was fun.”