A Fox News contributor has spoken out against critics who call him a "self-hating gay person", saying that his beliefs and morals don't contradict his sexuality, as that's only one part of his identity.
Guy Benson, a Christian, conservative talk radio personality and a regular contributor to Fox News is also one of the editors of TownHall.com, a conservative website.
In the video, Benson explains how he came to be a conservative, his views and how that marries up with his sexuality. "In my day-to-day life and work," he explains, "I spend a lot more time thinking and writing about the failures of Obamacare for example than I do about LGBT issues, whatever that term might mean on any given day".
Benson first came out via a footnote in End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun), a book he co-wrote with Mary Katharine Ham.
This isn't the first time he's voiced a lack of enthusiasm of critics who say his politics betray his sexuality. In a 2015 interview with BuzzFeed, Benson said gay Republicans being classified as "self-hating" was "extraordinarily close-minded and betray[ed] a lack of imagination at the very least".
Despite his stance on issues affecting the LGBT population, Benson did pay his respects to LGBT activists in the past.
"I fully recognise how fortunate I am to live in a time and a country where I can be openly gay and live a normal life, And that’s in large part thanks to the hard work of gay rights activists who’ve paved the way for people like me -- people who had it much harder than I do, and people who likely wouldn’t share my politics. I am genuinely grateful to them."
While Benson also espouses, "Conservatives are often much more tolerant of dissenting views than those who fancy themselves the torch-carriers of open-mindedness," the video is also hosted on PragerU, a conservative media organisation targeting younger audiences, often attempting to change the viewer's mind on a topic in about five minutes.
The founder of PragerU, Dennis Prager, has long opposed same-sex marriage, saying the legalisation of it would lead to polygamy and incest, wrote in 2014 the "heterosexual AIDS crisis" was "entirely manufactured by the Left" and tweeted "The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilisation than Russia does".
Benson concludes his video telling viewers he's a "Christian, a patriotic American and a free market, shrink the Government conservative who happens to be gay".
"That's how I choose to rank my priorities," he continues, "you know what that called? It's called progress".
