California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell called out far-right commentator Ben Shapiro in a contentious exchange during a House Judiciary Committee hearing over Shapiro's past comments about homosexual activity being a "sin"—that prompted Swalwell to mock Shapiro for claiming he has a "desire to sleep with many women."
Swalwell and Shapiro's back-and-forth was a key moment during Shapiro's appearance before the House of Representatives, whose Democratic members questioned him about Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a set of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation aimed at restructuring the United States federal government and consolidating executive power if the Republican nominee wins the 2024 presidential election.
These plans have come under increased scrutiny and former President Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from them, claiming in a recent post on Truth Social that these ideas are "absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."
Swalwell grilled Shapiro about Project 2025's specific policy proposals, which include reversing same-sex marriage protections and overturning all LGBTQ+ civil rights legislation. He asked Shapiro if he believes it is a sin to be gay and if he would support banning same-sex marriage, to which Shapiro said he considers sexual orientation not a sin but homosexual “activity” is sinful.
To that, Swalwell said:
“And just because we found some receipts, you did say, 'I think homosexual activity is a sin. ... I'm sure there's a genetic component to sexual orientation but the view of all religious people I know is that sexual behavior is up to you.'"
"And you said you have a "desire to sleep with many women but I do not."
Shapiro replied, to laughter in the chamber:
"I agree with me, yes, that's true."
Swalwell then said:
"Congratulations, I'm sure it's very hard to restrain yourself."
You can watch what happened in the video below.
Many joined Swalwell in mocking Shapiro.
Shapiro has a long history of disparaging the LGBTQ+ community—and gay men and transgender people particularly—for falling outside his hardline views on "traditional masculinity."
In 2022, he claimed the United States military abandoned "traditional masculinity" and declared wars are best fought by “typically very patriotic, very male people.” His remarks were quickly disregarded by actual members of the armed forces who noted he has never served in the military.
Around the same time, he garnered more criticism after he tried to insist President Joe Biden has an "equity agenda" and wants to put LGBTQ+ astronauts on the moon, describing the possibility as something that "sounds like a bad pornography."
Shapiro also once claimed Star Wars actor Mark Hamill was trying to "indoctrinate" children into "gender and sexual ideology" after Hamill posted a tweet consisting of a rainbow emoji and the word “gay” 69 times.
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