WILMINGTON, Del., Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's Republican U.S. Senate nominee, said in an interview four years ago homosexuality is "an identity disorder."
Newly revealed comments from 2006 indicate O'Donnell once believed gays and lesbians have an "identity disorder," putting her squarely at odds with the American medical and psychological community, and popular opinion, ABC News reported Monday.
"People are created in God's image. Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors. It's an identity disorder," she told the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal at the time.
The O'Donnell campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ABC News.
O'Donnell's remarks on homosexuality are the latest in a series of provocative statements on conservative social issues surfacing since she won the Delaware GOP nomination by upsetting Rep. Mike Castle last week.
She previously said she supported sexual abstinence and opposed condom use and masturbation, and that she had explored witchcraft.
"I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven," she said during an appearance on "Politically Incorrect" with Bill Maher in a 1999 episode that never aired.
Sylvia T. Webb, first officer of the Covenant of the Goddess, a national non-profit organization, said O'Donnell's remarks didn't accurately reflect the nature of witchcraft.
"It leads me to believe she's making it up completely out of whole cloth with poor information," Webb said.
"She might have had a date with some ... want-to-be goth child who was into thinking he was satanic or something. There are a lot of misinformed young people trying to be wild."
O'Donnell told TV talk show host Phil Donahue in 2002 that "condoms will not protect you from AIDS," and said on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" efforts to promote condom use are "anti-human."
In a 1996 interview on MTV's "Sex in the '90s," O'Donnell compared masturbation and pornography to adultery. She addressed that comment last week during a debate in Delaware, saying she was in her 20s "and very excited and passionate about my new-found faith. But I assure you my faith has matured, and when I get to Washington, D.C., it will be the Constitution on which I base all of my decisions."
