Dave Agema, the Republican National Committee member from western Michigan whose anti-gay Facebook post made headlines last week, is stridently unapologetic in a feisty radio interview.
Dave Agema was at WPIQ in Manistee on Monday.
"It’s not about hate, folks," he says of warnings about purported physical and mental health risks of homosexuality. "What it is, is hey, if you’re in this lifestyle, if you really love somebody that’s in this lifestyle, you want to ask them and try to get them out because they’re not going to live as long. It’s going to hurt them emotionally and physically.
"That’s what it’s about. So it’s really more about caring than it is hate," Agema adds during an outspoken, defiant conversation Monday with sympathetic hosts at WPIQ in Manistee in northern Michigan.
That talk-format station airs syndicated shows from Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Comfortable turf, in other words.
The station's online blurb about the interview describes Agema's original Facebook post as "satirical." The Morning Breakfast Show interviewers were Davin Lawrence and Doug Sedenquist, a Republican State Committee member and party vice-chair in Delta County.
"Agema doubled down in a radio interview he probably thought no one would hear," says a blogger Joshua Pugh of Progress Michigan, a nonprofit "citizen watchdog group" in Lansing that transcribed and posted extensive portions of the interview. The full audio is on YouTube (embedded below).
“This kind of bigoted, unhinged language is disgusting, and needs to stop," Jessica Tramontana of Progress Michigan says in a news release, adding:
“It’s time for Republican leadership to speak out. The self-proclaimed 'tough nerd' has a chance to prove his mettle and that he won’t stand for intolerance or hate from a party leader. Gov. Snyder and other Republicans need to stand up to bullies like Agema.”
Here are other radio comments by Agema, a state representative from 2007-12:
- School messages: "I don’t want my kids – my grandkids, I should say – taught in school that this is an alternate lifestyle, [that] you should accept it. I would rather have them taught, hey look, here’s what happens in this lifestyle. Here’s what’s going to happen to you physically. Here’s what’s going to happen to you emotionally. Instead we’re going to teach just the opposite.."
- Personal experience: "I’ve been involved in this issue for years, way back when I worked for American Airlines this became an issue, because we had, you know obviously we had a lot of homosexuals in the flight attendant realm, and, uhh, we had issues."
- Social change: "Society in general has been tolerant of any behavior that doesn’t affect others in a general stance. But this does affect others. . . . When you look at this stuff, it's just amazing what’s happening in our society, how fast it’s happened, I mean just 20 years ago, you wouldn’t think this would happen, or 25 years ago, and look where we are now -- we’re just like they are in Europe. And some of those studies over there show the same thing: This is not a good thing for us, folks. And all I want to do is maintain our principles, and I want to stay on the conservative side, not on the liberal side.”
- Critical response: "They’re trying to say you’re a bigot if you’re bringing it up and I think that’s what bothers me more than anything. I never heard such amount of name-calling, threats and bigotry on their part, calling me a bigot, for bringing up this information. I have never seen anything like it. . . . I’ve been threatened just by speaking out. And that’s the key, they are trying to shut anyone and everyone down from saying anything, that’s what they do. . . . What you get thrown back in your face is nothing but hate.”
- Threat to churches: "The next thing I fear is they’ll come to your churches and say oh, you won’t marry same-sex couples? Well that’s interesting. This is a hate crime, you just lost your tax-exempt status. This is going to go from one step to the next, it’s part of the plan.”
- Challenge to party: "I just wish our leadership would get behind this, and stand, have backbone, and stand for what our core principles are in the Republican Party.”
-- Alan Stamm
