Republican party leader won't stop comparing homosexuality to alcoholism

Republican National Committee member Dave Agema continued to compare homosexuality to alcoholism -- while insisting he wasn't -- and accused the Devil of trying to instigate his resignation in video released on Monday from a public appearance.

The Huffington Post reported that Agema made his latest anti-LGBT remarks during a Feb. 7 speech at the American Decency Foundation, saying he was taken out of context following an April 2013 radio interview in which he said people should help a homosexual loved one in the same way they would one who was an alcoholic.

"I said, let me give you an example: If I have my neighbor, and he's a good friend of mine, and he's dying of alcoholism, and I know he's dying, and I can help him, if I really care for the guy, I try to do something about it, not just let him die," Agema said on Monday. "The same way with the homosexual lifestyle. So when I said that suddenly they said Dave Agema compares homosexuality to alcoholism. That's not what I was doing I was trying to show an example if you really care for somebody."

Agema was also criticized last year for sharing a Facebook post calling the LGBT community "filthy," and claiming that he had seen gay men abuse the country's health care system, making it "immoral" for them to be eligible for spousal benefits.

The remarks led to RNC chair Reince Priebus asking Agema to step down. Agema refused. But on Monday, Agema said Priebus told him the threat also included withholding financial contributions.

"They threatened to take several hundred thousand dollars out of the RNC unless they came out against me," Agema told the audience, later adding, "We got Benghazi. We got NSA. We got the IRS. We got all these things. This is the Devil's way, and this is the Democrats' way, to split the party."

Instead of banding behind him, Agema said, his fellow Republicans "capitulated to political correctness," then abandoned him out of fear of negative press.

Watch Agema's speech, as posted online on Monday, below.