CNN’s Chris Cuomo and an Indiana conservative defending the anti-LGBT religious freedom law got into a heated exchange Tuesday.
“I’m very offended by the things that you’re saying about me personally,” Ryan McCann, policy director for the conservative Indiana Family Institute, said to Cuomo.
The CNN host then put up comments McCann has made in the past promoting “life changing counseling” for homosexuals to fight their temptations.
“You cannot fix gay, do you understand that?” Cuomo fiercely said. “This is who these people are, it’s not just a choice, it’s not a lifestyle; these people say, ‘This is who I am, this is whom I love, this is how I think, this is how I feel, this is how I was born, do you understand that?”
McCann then dodged, saying he wasn’t in the studio and couldn’t see the comments Cuomo was citing on the screen and couldn’t confirm he said that.
The Indiana law has been the central subject of a media firestorm with broadcast and cable networks extensively covering the controversial law that many claim will give businesses license to refuse service to LGBT people.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence defended the law on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos Sunday, claiming there is no intention to discriminate against LGBT people and he wouldn’t change the law, but would consider clarifying it.