Guy Benson, a conservative talk radio host, contributor for Fox News, and political editor for Townhall.com, has quietly come out as gay in what he calls a “footnote” in his new book End of Discussion: How the Left’s Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun).

In an interview with BuzzFeed, Benson shared his thoughts on being a gay conservative. “Gay rights is not something that dominates my attentions — or my passions — and that may seem incongruous, that may seem counterintuitive to a lot of people,” he said, “but the issues that I care about most undergird the reasons why I’m a conservative and have been forever and will be a conservative moving forward.”

Later in the interview, Benson discussed his support for “narrow carve-outs” in LGBT nondiscrimiantion laws for businesses that serve the wedding industry as well as his frustration with those who think gay Republicans must be self-hating people.

“I think that’s extraordinarily closed-minded and betrays a lack of imagination, at the very least,” said Benson. “A free-thinking, free citizen of a free country is not obliged to be confined to a bedazzled ideological straitjacket because that’s how they ‘ought’ to think and ‘ought’ to vote and ‘ought’ to rank their priorities.”

Watch Benson discuss a Mitt Romney ad back in 2012 with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, AFTER THE JUMP…