GOP leader: Gayness 'natural as pedophilia"

The chairman of Guilford County’s Republican Party and the leader of a gay-advocacy group exchanged testy e-mails and news releases Wednesday over the chairman’s assertion that homosexuality is "as natural as pedophilia."

Matt Hill Comer, 20, the leader of the N.C. Advocacy Coalition, wants an apology.

Marcus Kindley, the long-time Republican leader, won’t give it to him.

The tit-for-tat diatribes began Monday, after Kindley posted a long entry on his blog, The Chairman’s Corner, about declining morals in America.

"We now say that homosexuality is OK. That it is natural," he wrote in the blog, which is an online journal. "Yes it is as natural as pedophilia."

Comer, a UNCG student whose group has about 100 members, demanded on Tuesday an apology from Kindley and the local party’s leadership. Comer accuses Kindley of trying to scare people into thinking "homosexuality is as immoral, repulsive and perverse as pedophilia and the abuse and exploitation of children."

Kindley’s blog makes it clear that he’s speaking on behalf of the Republican Party, Comer said. On Wednesday afternoon, Kindley amended his blog to say his views aren’t connected to the Republican Party.

In an e-mail to Comer, Kindley said he wasn’t attacking homosexuals, but simply making "an observation about what is natural and what is not."

"I take offense to you taking out of context what was written for your own political agenda," Kindley wrote.

His comments on the immorality of homosexuality are in keeping with the N.C. Republican Party’s position: "We believe homosexual behavior is not normal and should not be taught as an acceptable 'alternative’ lifestyle either in public education or in public policy."

Two members of the local Republican Party, Katherine Lindley and Bruce Wiley, said Wednesday that they hadn’t read or heard about Kindley’s comments and that it wasn’t something the party has discussed formally.

Comer said he was not sure what his next step would be. In his most recent news release, issued Wednesday, Comer said Kindley "should be ashamed of his out-dated, unscientific, derogatory and prejudiced comparison between gay people and pedophiles."

"His claim that his comments were taken out of context is an easy excuse with which he hopes to get 'off the hook.’"

Contact Margaret Moffett Banks at 373-7031 or mbanks@news-record.com