A Republican politician has insisted that she only accidentally compared gay people to Nazis.

Janne Myrdal sits in the North Dakota state senate as a Republican, and was one of the lawmakers who recently blocked attempts to formalise same-sex marriage into law, nearly two years on from the ruling that brought equal marriage to all 50 states.

The Republican politician came under fire last week for posts she made on Facebook, sharing an article titled ‘The Forgotten Gays Part II: Is the LGBT On Crack?’ – which featured a prominent Nazi Swastika in rainbow colours.

The column, from a fringe Republican blog Conservatives4Palin, attacked Jennifer Holliday for pulling out of a performance at Donald Trump’s inauguration.

It also claimed that “radical and extreme voices” have overtaken the LGBT movement, with the author alleging that they have “bank accounts hacked eight times” by LGBT activists due to speaking out.

After being challenged for sharing the post, Ms Myrdal claimed she had been “unaware of” the rainbow Swastika.

She said: “Recently I reposted a story on my personal Facebook wall that had an image attached to the link that I was unaware of; I have since deleted the post.

“As a daughter of a family that suffered under said image, I deplore this image and I would never post this image on purpose.”

It’s unclear how Sen. Myrdal could possibly have missed the photo, which was also featured prominently at the top of the article.

However she has since declined to comment further.

The incident comes just weeks after Sen. Myrdal helped defeat a bill that would have removed defunct claims in state law that marriage is between “one man and one woman” – despite the provisions being entirely unenforceable following the US Supreme Court ruling in 2015.

She claimed that embracing same-sex weddings in law would “serve to diminish with official intent the honour and sacredness of what the human institution of marriage is described as in the North Dakota Constitution as it stands today.”