(St. Paul, Minnesota) Minnesota state Rep. Arlon Lindner continues to defend his position that gays and lesbians were never persecuted during the Holocaust.

His latest allegation goes even further, saying that "the main gay participants in the Holocaust were Nazi concentration camp guards," and he suggests that homosexuality helped lead to World War II. Lindner said he bases his accusations on the book "The Pink Swastika," published by Abiding Truth Ministries, a right wing fundamentalist group based in Wisconsin that claims gays were responsible for the rise of Hitler.

Lindner, a transplanted Texan with a degree from a Baptist seminary has drawn fire since declaring that gays were rewriting history by "claiming" to have been victims of the Holocaust.

"I'm not convinced that they were persecuted," he said.

In attempting to justify his allegations Lindner also has angered African Americans and AIDS care workers.

During debate on a bill sponsored by Linder that would strip gays and lesbians of state human rights protections the Republican told legislators: "What I'm trying to prevent is the Holocaust of our children [from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases]. If you want to sit around and wait until America becomes another African continent, you do that, but I'm going to do something."

That immediately drew severe criticism from the House's only two black members.

Later, he said: "I don't believe that's a racist statement. That's a statement of fact." He also said he had no idea that his black colleagues would be offended. "I don't think of them as black people," he said. "I just think of them as people."

His remarks about gays led legislators to file an official protest.

Three Democrats who are Jewish have called for Lindner to be censured and to resign as chairman of the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee.

Rep. Ron Latz accused Lindner of "perhaps a willful failure to know history."

Rep. Frank Hornstein, whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust, called Lindner's views "deeply offensive to millions of Americans whose relatives suffered during the Third Reich."

And when Rep. Lynda Boudreau noted that the Nazis exterminated Jews after outlawing possession of firearms, Rep. Phyllis Kahn replied: "The first thing the Nazis passed was repeal of legalized abortion."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has also weighed in, describing Lindner's comments about the Holocaust as "troubling."

"Since the liberation of Nazi concentration camps more than a half century ago, the atrocious scope of the Holocaust remains one of history's most vivid personifications of human evil," the Republican governor said. "I oppose any efforts to rewrite history to exclude homosexuals or any other minority group that suffered as victims of the Holocaust."