Ken Blackwell: Gays Suffer From Compulsion

Now that he's up for chairman of the Republican National Committee, an interview Ken Blackwell did with Michelangelo Signorile during last summer's convention is getting wide condemnation from progressives. According to Blackwell, even if he were gay, he would have been able to suppress that "compulsion."

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a leading candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC), is coming under fire Monday for making remarks this summer that gays and lesbians suffer from a "compulsion" that can be "restrained."

"You can choose to restrain that compulsion," Blackwell told radio host Michelangelo Signorile, a gay and lesbian advocate, this summer during the Republican National Convention. "And so I think in fact you don't have to give in to the compulsion to be homosexual."

"I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual," Blackwell added, "but if in fact I had the urge to be something else I could have in fact suppressed that urge."

Another RNC chairman candidate, Chip Saltsman, saw his bid derailed after circulating a CD to RNC voters that critics said was racially insensitive toward President-elect Obama.

Go to Michelangelo Signorile's site to listen to an audio recording of the interview.