Christine O'Donnell Says Gay People Have Psychological Disorders

by Michael Jones · 2010-09-20 17:40:00 UTC
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That sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine couldn't be a more apt title for the campaign of Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's GOP Senate candidate for the November 2010 election. Because while Christine O'Donnell's new adventure might be as a mainstream candidate for U.S. Senate, it's her old quotes that keep coming back to not only bite her, but to paint a picture of a politician out in left field.

Over the weekend Bill Maher resurrected a doozey from the late 1990s, where O'Donnell admitted to dabbling in what she labeled witchcraft, and attending a gathering that included a Satanic altar. Last week quotes emerged where O'Donnell blamed people living with HIV for bringing the disease on themselves. O'Donnell's also on record championing ex-gay therapy, and calling masturbation a sin from the devil.

Lest anyone think that the quotes from O'Donnell's past would take a break from the limelight, here's another, courtesy of the Washington Post. In a 2006 interview, O'Donnell said that gay people were psychologically disordered.

"People are created in God's image. Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors. It's an identity disorder," O'Donnell said, taking a position that has been universally rejected by science and psychology since the early 1970s.

No word on whether O'Donnell was including her openly lesbian sister under the label of people with identity disorders.

The identity disorder quote comes from an old interview conducted by Victor Greto, who in 2006 wrote a profile of O'Donnell for the Wilmington News Journal. The original quote never ran, but Greto dug it up in his notes and passed it along to the fine folks at the Washington Post.

O'Donnell has tried to pass off many of her rather colorful quotes as a sign of her youth, suggesting that as she's aged into adulthood, she's become much more reasonable about many social issues.

But this new quote is only four years old. And coupled with some rather unethical campaign practices during her primary against Rep. Mike Castle, where she all but tried to paint Rep. Castle as a feather boa-wearing grand marshal at a gay pride parade, it definitely raises some questions about how far O'Donnell's viewpoints on LGBT issues, and homosexuality specifically, have evolved.

It doesn't seem like much. Even if O'Donnell's openly lesbian sister is willing to give her a pass on more than a decade of anti-gay remarks.

Photo credit: christine2010.com

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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