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LEXINGTON, S.C. – Gov. Scott Walker, who recently expressed support for a ban on gay Boy Scout leaders because it “protected children,” said Wednesday that he did not mean that children needed “physical protection” from gay scoutmasters — but rather protection from the debate over the ban.

In comments published on Tuesday by The Independent Journal Review, a news website that is popular with young conservatives, Mr. Walker, a former Eagle Scout, said, “I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.” Yet during a brief news conference in South Carolina on Wednesday, Mr. Walker said that he was not pushing to save the ban — “it’s up to the Boy Scouts” — and that his earlier remarks were not about protecting children from gay people.

“The protection was not a physical protection,” he said, but rather about “protecting them from being involved in the very thing you’re talking about right now, the political and media discussion about it, instead of just focusing on what Scouts is about, which is about camping and citizenship and things of that nature.”

Embracing popular positions with conservative and evangelical voters has increasingly become a key part of Mr. Walker’s strategy to compete for votes against the 14 other Republicans running for president, especially in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, which he considers a must-win contest. Mr. Walker has been especially firm in his support for amending the United States Constitution to allow states to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Mr. Walker’s comments on the Scout policy drew sharp criticism from gay rights groups.

“Scott Walker’s suggestion that the Boy Scouts of America’s current discriminatory policy somehow ‘protects’ children from gay adults is offensive, outrageous and absolutely unacceptable,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign. “His comments imply that we represent a threat to the safety and well-being of young people. For a sitting governor and presidential candidate to make such a disgraceful claim is unconscionable.”

Mr. Walker also indicated on Wednesday that he would consider Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina as a vice presidential running mate if he won the Republican Party’s nomination, though he repeatedly emphasized that the notion was premature.

“Certainly Nikki’s a friend of mine, she has been a very capable governor, and there will be a long list of people like her, but again, like I said, it’s premature,” Mr. Walker said.