Evangelical GOP candidate Rod Joseph: "You cannot be born gay. That’s impossible"
The Republican said being gay is a choice, despite campaigning in one of South Florida's most LGBTQ-friendly districts
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In an act of ignorance so out-of-date, you’d think it happened two decades ago, Rod Joseph, an evangelical Christian U.S. House candidate from Florida, said in an interview that everyone is “born straight” and gay people choose to be gay because the alternative is “impossible biologically.”
Which is a hell of a thing to say when the district in which you’re campaigning—which includes Wilton Manors, Fort Lauderdale, and Oakland Park—is considered an LGBTQ hub for south Florida.
The comments came in response to a question asked by the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board on Tuesday about a recent tweet posted—and eventually deleted— by bigoted GOP Rep. Andy Ogles. He said, at the beginning of Pride Month, “Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month.” (Ogles, the sort of guy who would absolutely post something like that, quickly blamed an unnamed staffer for the tweet.)
The correct answer would have been to denounce the tweet and the sentiment underlying it, before adding how that kind of anti-LGBTQ hate has no place in society.
Joseph responded by saying he didn’t want to comment at all… before baring his entire ass and revealing his thoughts about LGBTQ people in general:
“You cannot be born gay. That’s impossible biologically,” he said.
Joseph said sexuality is a preference, not an inherent orientation. “Sexual preference from the Roman Empire to date, it’s always a preference.”
Joseph, in an interview Tuesday, also said he is concerned that people are somehow indoctrinated or influenced to become LGBTQ. “Most of the people, they’re victims of sexual abuse at the very young age.”
To support his view that individuals choose their sexual orientation, Joseph said people should “look at the natural habitat. You never see a lion that mate(s) with a male lion for life. You never see a giraffe, a male giraffe, that mate(s) with a giraffe…. Myself right now saying I am a giraffe, that doesn’t mean it’s true.”
He’s wrong about everything. People are born gay even if they don’t realize it until later in life. It has nothing to do with sexual abuse. And you absolutely do see male lions mating with each other. Same with male giraffes, as the Sun Sentinel explained:
A 2025 documentary, “Animal Pride: Nature’s Coming Out Story,” and a 2024 documentary, “Queer Planet,” reported there are, indeed, giraffes, lions and other animals that engage in same-sex behavior.
Elsewhere in the interview, Joseph added that he was anti-abortion, too, which explained why the former Democrat left the party years earlier. (He also ran for both U.S. House and Senate as a Democrat, most recently in 2024. He lost badly in both primaries. No wonder.) His website explains that “Rod believes in family values, guided by his faith as a committed Christian.” No word on how he would handle those family values if any of his children ever came out to him.
If this is supposed to catapult him to success in the upcoming Republican primary, I’m not sure it did him any favors. The other GOP candidates gave equally bigoted answers without using the same language. One just said “I don’t know how God made people” while both that one and a third candidate said they disagreed with what Joseph said. (Which doesn’t mean they support LGBTQ rights at all.)
If there’s any consolation here, it’s that Florida has already gerrymandered the maps in the state, and this happens to be one of the few overwhelmingly blue districts left. The Democrat on the ballot is all-but-assured a victory. That’s probably why the GOP candidates are so bad at this; the stronger Republican politicians know better than to jump into this race. Which means the bulk of their party’s nominees are the sorts of crazies who are repellent ideologues who just want to use this campaign as a launching pad for their next careers.
Joseph must have seen the backlash to the interview, though, because on Wednesday, he responded on Facebook with a message that doubles down on his bigotry while pretending he completely cares about LGBTQ people:
My faith teaches me that every person is made in God’s image and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect — no exceptions. In interviews, I speak from that same faith when I talk about my personal beliefs on marriage and family. I understand not everyone shares my religious convictions, and I respect that.
What I will always fight for as your Congressman is equal protection under the law, safety, and opportunity for every resident of District 20 — regardless of who they are. That’s the job.
That’s the promise.
The fact that he didn’t get specific about how he’s protect LGBTQ rights tells you he doesn’t want to protect them at all. Plus, you can’t treat people with dignity and respect when you’re denying a vital part of who they are.
The issue here isn’t just that Joseph is wrong about gay people; he’s wrong about them in a way that even conservative evangelical churches have fixed over the years. They’ll freely admit people are gay; they just urge them never to act on it. But if Joseph is perpetuating lies that peaked decades ago, it suggests he’s incapable of getting good information on topics that would matter to his own constituents. He’s too intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt to know better.
I have no clue if he’ll fare well in the Republican primary, but it’s clear he doesn’t think his bigotry will hurt him. That’s probably accurate. Spreading anti-LGBTQ hate is par for the course at this point, and anyone who votes for Republicans at any level is complicit in the harm caused by the party.
No, Joey. Being born an evangelical is impossible. Religion is a choice. Homosexuality is inborn.
"My faith teaches me that every person is made in God’s image."
Pretty sure your republican colleagues don't think your god is black.