Joshua Higginbotham shared that he is gay in a video he posted to Twitter. ""My family accepts me. My friends accept me. Now I’m asking you to accept me as well," he also wrote.
A West Virginia state lawmaker has come out as gay, making the announcement in a video he posted to social media earlier this week.
Del. Joshua Higginbotham, who was the youngest to become a West Virginia legislator when he was elected in 2016, shared his announcement on Twitter.
"I’m gay. I’ve wanted to tell you this for many years, but I couldn’t be public like I wanted because there were still a few people in my family who didn’t know yet—now they do," he wrote on Twitter. "So now I’m telling you, too."
Higginbotham, 24, said he first took time to share that he was gay with family, and while he feared they would have negative responses, they have supported him completely.
"We made a decision as a family to be more open about it and make it public, because there's nothing wrong with it," he said in the two-minute video. "I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not embarrassed by it, part of who I am. And I wanted to share this part about me with you."
The self-described conservative Christian assured his community members that his Republican values will remain the same, saying that nothing has changed aside from the fact that his sexuality is now out in the open.
"It’s ok to be gay and Christian. It’s ok to be gay and a conservative Republican official in West Virginia," he wrote. "My family accepts me. My friends accept me. Now I’m asking you to accept me as well."
