Texas Lawmaker Defends Anti-Gay Remarks

Last week, a Texas councilwoman came under fire after her aide allegedly released an audio recording of the politician making anti-gay remarks during a meeting. Now that she's in the media spotlight, the lawmaker issued a statement on Monday, defending her comments, Houston's CBS-affiliated station KHOU reports.

"The comments from the staff meeting on May 21st were and are my personal opinions and thoughts as guaranteed to me by the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution," San Antonio's District 9 councilwoman Elisa Chan said. "It is unfortunate that a former member of my D9 Council team betrayed the trust of my staff members and me. I will fight, I will always fight for our freedom of speech, especially in a private setting."

Chan's statement come shortly after James Stevens, 28, released the audio of the politician spewing anti-gay remarks during a meeting in Chan's city hall office. Chan and her group were discussing an upcoming nondiscrimination ordinance.

"I don't think homosexual people should do adoption," Chan says. "They should be banned by adoption. You're gonna confuse those kids. They should be banned. If you wanted to choose that lifestyle, we don't want to discriminate you, but it shouldn't affect the young people. How terrible that we actually allow them to adopt?"

The ordinance the group is debating would prohibit discrimination based on veteran status, sexual orientation and gender identity for city jobs or jobs contracted with the San Antonio.

"It is actually, what you call, suggestive, for the kids to be corrupt, which is against nature. I'm telling you, anything that is against nature is not right. You know, to be quite honest, I know this is not politically correct. I never bought in that you are born, that you are born gay. I can't imagine it.

"When I say that it's ... behavioral preference, they say that, 'No, you're born with it.' But I never bought into that," she added." I think it's just disgusting just to even think about. All the definitions. ..."

Stevens released the recording via San Antonio Express News's Brian Chasnoff and in his original report, the journalist writes about a discussion he has with Chan regarding the audio. She said she needed "to hear that recording to know" if it's her speaking.

"I'm not quite sure what you're talking about so maybe you can play that back to me. We talk a lot of things in the staff meetings, so I wanted to know also under what context," she added.

Chan will hold a press conference about the recording later this week.