Sen. Stacey Campfield says he was speaking “on the fly” about the origins of AIDs and its transmission during a radio interview that now has “some people going crazy.”
Still, the Knoxville Republican says his assertions, including the possibility that AIDs originated from a man having sexual intercourse with a monkey, reasonably reflect what others have said in researching and writing on the subject.
“I’m not a historian on AIDs,” he said in an interview Friday. “But I’ve read and seen what other people have read and seen and those facts are out there.”
Dr. Jacques Pepin, author of the book “The Origin of AIDS,” said some of the assertions are “kind of funny,” in the sense of being strange, and not fully factual.
Campfield was interviewed by Michelangelo Signorile, editor-at-large of Huffington Gay Voices on Signorile’s radio show on SiriusXM’s LGBT channel, OutQ. The subject was a Campfield-sponsored bill, nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill (SB49), which Campfield says is intended to block discussion of homosexuality in grades kindergarten through eight of Tennessee schools.
In a Huffington Post story on the interview, Signorile describes Campfield — while speaking in an “often belligerent and sarcastic tone” – as “comparing homosexuality to bestiality and making what public health officials would characterize as recklessly false assertions about AIDS.” Campfield said his remarks were taken “out of context” in parts of the story.

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