Last week at a campaign stop in Fort Payne, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill’s remarks during a post-speech question-and-answer session caught the attention of the mainstream media for a reference to “homosexual activities” as a critique of modern television programming.

After the remarks were picked up by other media outlets, Merrill, a candidate for the GOP nomination in next year’s U.S. Senate election in Alabama, was criticized for his call to push back against it.

During an appearance on Huntsville radio’s WVNN on Friday, Merrill offered the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team as an example of how certain aspects of the culture were thrust upon the American public but noted that wasn’t really the focus of those he has come across throughout the state.

“You know those people I am talking to all across the state of Alabama in all 67 counties – they believe just like I do,” Merrill said on “The Jeff Poor Show.” “They want each and every Alabamian to be able to achieve at the highest level that they are capable of achieving without any special dispensation given to any particular group. They want everybody to be able to excel and achieve at the highest level that they can and for us to celebrate that as a state and as a nation. But not to have someone’s political thoughts, values pushed down our throat but to celebrate who we are and to allow us to become all we can become.”

He went on to call the media’s focus on those aspects of his previous remarks “really disappointing.”

“That’s really disappointing, but that’s where we are today,” he added. “And that’s typically the kind of thing that makes the news, and that’s the thing that people in the media, the mainstream liberal media like to focus on.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.