HomoQuotable - Steve Wiles

"I think that everyone has their own choices to make and I'm fine with everyone making their own. For me, from a religious standpoint, just for my life, for me, it just was not something that I wanted to continue. Of course it was an embarrassment, but you know, you move on. You live life, and you change, and you make yourself what you want yourself to be. And that's where I am now." - North Carolina GOP state Senate candidate Steve Wiles on his former drag career as Miss Mona Sinclair. Wiles declined to tell Business Insider whether he now considers himself "ex-gay."

Wiles added that he considers marriage to be a "religious institution" and that opposing same-sex marriage does not make one anti-gay. Despite that, he claims he stopped promoting the Miss Gay America pageant, from which he was expelled, because he objected to the gay "lifestyle."

Though he now views his past as a drag queen as "an embarrassment," Wiles said there were positive things he took away from the experience. "I learned a lot of lessons, some of them, well most of them, the hard way," explained Wiles. "That's generally how I learned, but I did learn from my mistakes. That's something that I wish I could say for some of my GOP rivals." Given his newfound knowledge, Business Insider asked Wiles if there was anything he'd say to people who are currently drag queens. "Good for them," Wiles said. "If they're happy, good for them."

North Carolina's primary is Tuesday. Wiles has deleted yesterday's Facebook post in which declared that he'd only become a drag queen because he "needed a job."