South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint told
a group of conservatives over the weekend that schools should reject
gay and lesbian teachers.
DeMint, considered one of the Senate's
most socially conservative members, added that a sexually active
unmarried woman isn't fit to teach children, either.
The 59-year-old Republican was speaking
to a group of supporters Friday night at a Spartanburg Baptist
Church, the
Spartanburg
Herald-Journal
reported.
Not banning such groups from the
teaching profession, DeMint implied, would be un-Christian.
“[When I said those thing], no one
came to my defense,” DeMint told the crowd, referring to comments
he first made back in 2004. “But everyone would come to me and
whisper that I shouldn't back down. They don't want government
purging their rights and their freedom to religion.”
A DeMint spokesman told
all-things-political website Talking Point Memo that the
senator was “making a point about how the media attacks people for
holding a moral opinion.”
South Carolina voters are likely to
return DeMint to Washington in November. His rival, Democrat Alvin
Greene, is considered a long-shot.