North Carolina state senate hopeful Bob Diamond recently asked on social media whether the victims of the Orlando shooting deserved what happened to them.

Diamond, a pharmacist and GOP activist running for the District 37 seat held by Democratic incumbent Jeff Jackson, posted a link to his Google Plus account on June 14 asking, “Did They (The LGBT Victims) Deserve It?”

The article he linked to is titled, “Did They Deserve It?” and was written by the president of the N.C. Pastors Network, Dave Kistler.

“All men and women are #sinners and deserving of hell. ALL are equally #guilty before a Holy and Righteous God,” he continued, quoting from the piece, hashtags his. “Unless repentance of sin occurs, and faith in #Christ takes place, ALL will equally and eternally perish.”

“The headline was just a teaser,” Diamond explained to The Charlotte Observer. “The post was indicating that all of us are sinners. Every one of us deserves to be in hell if it weren’t for what Jesus did.”

“I apologize for misleading anybody,” he added. “Jesus loves everybody. I love everybody and I want everybody to be saved.”

The article by Kistler contains the following Islamophobic rhetoric:

What happened to their loved ones is unjustifiable and should happen to NO ONE! As individuals, created in the image of God, the 49 who tragically died deserved the decency and respect due to all human beings. The actions of Omar Mateen were the result of a godless, anti-Christ, anti-God, anti-American ideology called Islam. And, by the way, an ideology that is antithetical to all that is America and American. I appreciate the comments (not to be interpreted as an endorsement) of Donald Trump this afternoon. He unequivocally stated that he ‘refuses to be politically correct.’ He laid the blame for Orlando’s attack squarely where it should be placed–on a purely evil ideology that is tragically on the rise in our land, and which, unless stopped, will continue to result in the very acts so heinously committed yesterday.”

The N.C. Democratic Party has demanded Gov. McCrory and the N.C. GOP denounce the post.

“Bob Diamond has disqualified himself from holding elected office,” executive director Kimberly Reynolds said in a press release. “To suggest that the victims of the terrible tragedy in Orlando deserved to die is unacceptable. To say that LGBT people are ‘deserving of hell’ is downright hateful.”

Gov. McCrory received backlash of his own after appearing at a prayer rally event in October of last year where he sat with bowed head as religious leaders prayed over him and delivered anti-LGBT rhetoric, as well as saying the United States “deserves judgment.”