White Supremacist Says He's Sorry for Calling Candidate Gay

A white supremacist is apologizing today, in a perplexing statement, for funding robocalls in Utah that accused upstart independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin of being gay.

"I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents," said William Johnson, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Then Johnson takes another swipe at McMullin, who is single, for not having children.

"I sent the robocalls out because Utah is a strong family-values state and America and the West is gripped by an extreme and fatal malady: failure to marry and have children," said Johnson, according to the Tribune. "The white birthrate is so astonishingly low that Western Civilization will soon cease to exist. I felt Evan McMullin typified that perfidious mentality."

Johnson is a lawyer based in Los Angeles and the founder of the racism-fueled American National SuperPAC, which he uses to spend his own money supporting Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. He oddly cited his idol's example when issuing the apology.

"Just as Donald Trump has issued a heartfelt apology for his past locker-room talk, I too issue a heartfelt apology for this robocall," he said. "I should not have sent it out. I am truly sorry."

In the robocalls, Johnson can be heard accusing McMullin of being gay, attacking the candidate's mother for divorcing McMullin's father and marrying a woman.

"Evan has two mommies," Johnson said in the calls. "His mother is a lesbian, married to another woman. Evan is OK with that. Indeed, Evan supports the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Evan is over 40 years old and is not married and doesn't even have a girlfriend. I believe Evan is a closet homosexual."

The latest poll from Monmouth University, released today, has McMullin with surprisingly sizable support in Utah, though still trailing both major party candidates. Trump gets 37 percent, Clinton gets 31 percent, and McMullin has 24 percent in the poll of likely voters. By comparison, third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have been stuck in low single digits all over the country.

McMullin is on the ballot in 11 states in total: Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Virginia, and South Carolina. Elsewhere, he's pressing for a write-in candidacy.

But it's in the heavily Mormon state of Utah where he's really gained in polls. McMullin, a Mormon and former CIA operative, has cited his religion as reason for continuing to support "traditional marriage," though he told The Salt Lake Tribune, "My mother has a different view. That is OK. I love her very much, and she is one of my best friends. She is a wonderful mother. I wish everyone could have a mother like my mom."

McMullin doesn't actually concur with the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality, as Johnson suggested in the robocall. But the candidate said he wouldn't seek to overturn the ruling.

And McMullin doesn't actually exemplify any wacky conspiracy theory about the world not wanting to have children, since McMullin said he left his job at the CIA because he wanted to get married and start a family.