Ahead of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Republican member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives Sally Kern has renewed her claim that homosexuality has killed more people in the United States than terrorism.

In 2008, Mrs Kern was secretly recorded giving a speech where she said that homosexuality is “deadly and it’s spreading, and it will destroy our young people. It will destroy this nation. Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades.”

She became a nationally lampooned figure after lesbian chat-show host Ellen DeGeneres left her a voice mail and broadcast it on her television programme.

Now promoting a book, The Stoning of Sally Kern, the politician says that as a result of HIV/ AIDS, homosexuality has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

In an interview given to Peter LaBarbera of anti-gay campaign group Americans for Truth, Mrs Kern said: “You know if you just look at it in practical terms, which has destroyed and ended the life of more people? Terrorism attack here in America or HIV/AIDS? In the last twenty years, fifteen to twenty years, we’ve had maybe three terrorist attacks on our soil with a little over 5,000 people regrettably losing their lives. In the same time frame, there have been hundreds of thousands who have died because of having AIDS. So which one’s the biggest threat?

“And you know, every day our young people, adults too, but especially our young people, are bombarded at school, in movies, in music, on TV, in the mall, in magazines, they’re bombarded with ‘homosexuality is normal and natural.’ It’s something they have to deal with every day. Fortunately we don’t have to deal with a terrorist attack every day, and that’s what I mean.

“It’s [homosexuality] more dangerous [than terrorism], and yes I think that it’s also more dangerous because it will tear down the moral fibre of this nation. We were founded as a nation upon the principles of religion and morality, if we take those out from under our society we will lose what has made us a great nation, we will no longer be a virtuous people, which we see happening already. And without virtue this nation will not survive.”