Talking Points Memo has looked back at the original 1998 interview with the Omaha World-Herald that caused former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, now President Obama’s nominee to be defense secretary, to have to apologize to James Hormel, the US’s first openly gay ambassador. It seems that Hagel’s remarks against Hormel were more expansive than has been widely reported. In addition to saying that Hormel was “openly aggressively gay,” Hagel said Hormel had attended an “anti-Catholic” event too:

Hagel also told the World-Herald he has seen tape of Hormell (sic) at an event by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a San Francisco-based performance and activist group comprised of gay men in drag as nuns.

“It is very clear on this tape that he’s laughing and enjoying the antics of an anti-Catholic gay group in this gay parade,” Hagel told the paper in the 1998 interview. “I think it’s wise for the president not to go forward with this nomination.”