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A new article from Business Insider exposes self-proclaimed homophobe Kevin Coughlin for continuously espousing bigoted and harmful rhetoric.
After he was accused of discriminating against a fellow college student on the basis of their sexuality in his role as student body president, Coughlin claimed, “I’m homophobic, I admit it, I have a problem with it.”
Two weeks later, Coughlin doubled down on his remarks with a column where he said, “It is true that I do not agree with the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead. I do not shirk from that.”
He went on to lose his reelection for student body president.
Throughout his career, “Coughlin has maintained a general opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, including voting for a bill to ban gay marriage in 2004, when he served in the state senate.” Just this year, Coughlin ‘‘strongly agreed’ with the government only recognizing “marriage as a ‘God-ordained, sacred and legal union of one man and one woman.’”
DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
“Kevin Coughlin’s homophobic comments are repulsive, and his effort to outlaw gay marriage is disqualifying. His classmates were the first to reject him for his bigotry and voters in Northeast Ohio will do it again in November.”
Business Insider: GOP House candidate declared himself a ‘homophobe’ as college student body president
Bryan Metzger | June 5, 2024
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Kevin Coughlin, the Republican nominee to take on Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes in November, is one of his party’s best hopes of flipping a House seat this year.
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Coughlin has a long history of serving in elected office, including 10 years in the Ohio Senate, four years in the Ohio House, and even a two-year stint as student body president at Bowling Green State University.
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It was during his college years that Coughlin — amid a controversy involving alleged discrimination against a fellow student who was seeking an appointment to the student senate — declared that he disagreed with “the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead.”
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He also labeled himself — at least ironically — as a homophobe.
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“I’m homophobic, I admit it, I have a problem with it,” the student newspaper quoted Coughlin as saying in 1991, citing two people who had heard him make the remarks. Coughlin later penned a guest column in the paper disputing the exact quote while claiming that he had made the comment in jest.
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“It is true that I do not agree with the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead. I do not shirk from that,” Coughlin continued. “But that does not make me stupid, uneducated or homophobic and I’m rather tired of people being persecuted because they hold an opinion.”
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According to archives of The BG News, the university’s student-run newspaper, the controversy began in January 1991, when a vacancy opened in the university’s undergraduate student senate.
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Coughlin, first elected student body president in 1989, had the power to appoint a new senator. But after the president of the school’s Lesbian and Gay Alliance expressed interest in the seat, Coughlin chose someone else.
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That led another student senator to accuse Coughlin of discriminating against the student on the basis of his sexuality, at which point the student paper quoted Coughlin in February as saying he was “homophobic.”
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The future state lawmaker would go on to lose reelection as student body president that spring, owing in part to the controversy.
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Though it’s been over 30 years since those events took place, Coughlin has maintained a general opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, including voting for a bill to ban gay marriage in 2004, when he served in the state senate.
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Additionally, on a conservative Christian organization’s questionnaire completed earlier this year, Coughlin indicated that he “strongly agreed” with the notion that “no government has the authority to alter” the definition of marriage as a “God-ordained, sacred and legal union of one man and one woman.”
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