The huge uproar over religious freedom laws in Indiana and Arkansas was manufactured by the nation's "gay agenda," which wants to force America to accept homosexuality, former House majority leader Tom DeLay says.
"This isn't about discrimination. We love people that have chosen to be homosexuals," DeLay, a Texas Republican, said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"This is the result of the gay agenda. We're now seeing what the gay agenda is all about."
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Indiana has come under fire for a bill gay-rights advocates say allows businesses to discriminate against homosexuals under the guise of protecting religious liberty. After an outcry and the threat of losing business, Gov. Mike Pence inked an amended bill to ban discrimination. Arkansas, which passed a similar law, also had to alter it.
Delay insisted the laws are in concert with the values of America's founders.
"Our religious liberty is the bedrock of our country as it's described in the Declaration of Independence — that we get our rights from the creator, somebody bigger than us," DeLay told Steve Malzberg.
"And from that we get truth with the values by which we live, and from that we are good people that can govern through the Constitution.
"Religious liberty is the foundation of this country and what they're trying to do is to undermine the religious liberty so that they become an accepted sexual orientation."
DeLay added that Americans must "fight this battle to the bitter end because once you let the government dictate to you what you believe and what your values are, then this country's finished."
Instead of being about discrimination, DeLay insisted, the laws are about stopping the proliferation of sin.
"The problem is the sin. So yes, when I have a business and some gay person walks in — unidentified, by the way; there's no way you can tell unless he tells you — then I'm going to serve him," he said.
"But if he comes in and asks me to undermine my values, what I believe in, undermine my religious liberty, then I have the right to stand up for what I believe in and not serve him.
"It's not discrimination. It's the government telling us how we are to act, what we are to believe, and that has got to be fought with every ounce of our being."
DeLay said Republicans Pence and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have shown "great weakness" in bowing to tweak the laws as they were originally written after complaints by gays.
"But I've got to tell you, these [potential GOP presidential] candidates, they came out, they understand immediately," he said.
"I don't know of one that has come out against the religious freedom act, and some of them like [Rick] Santorum, like [Mike] Huckabee, like [Sen.] Ted Cruz and others are standing up and showing more courage and more strength than the governor of Indiana or the governor of Arkansas."