College football standout Michael Sam has garnered praise from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates and allies after publicly coming out, but one conservative voice is crying foul.
As Right Wing Watch first reported, Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality slammed Sam in an interview with Voice of Christian Youth America's Vic Eliason, saying the former Missouri defensive lineman and first-team All-American is "deluded" and must "become an ex-gay, an ex-homosexual.”
"God does not give homosexuality as part of who you are," LaBarbera noted. "I think that’s the saddest thing of all, to think that sexual sin is part of who you are. We need to pray that the Lord will touch him, he will be sought out by Christians in the NFL."
Listen to LaBarbera's remarks on Sam in the audio clip below, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
He concluded, "The NFL and all these pro-homosexual people are not his friends."
LaBarbera's claims are perhaps less surprising given his history of anti-LGBT remarks. Earlier this year, he condemned "Glee" and the gay wedding featured in California's Rose Parade while defending "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson, who sparked controversy in December 2013 for making a series of racist and anti-gay remarks in an interview with GQ magazine.
"All of those little kids are going to be seeing two men or two women or whatever it is getting so-called married and it’s going to infect their minds and corrupt those young minds," LaBarbera told the American Family Association's Sandy Rios.
In 2012, he blasted the Obama administration for turning the U.S. into "a huge gay-rights government," adding, "There's lots of government and states, whether they're Muslim or like ardently Christian nations like Uganda that don't want, they don't share the caviler attitude of the West toward homosexuality, they certainly don't want to promote it."
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