Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt said he didn’t know Dwight David Dorty had been convicted of sexually assaulting two children when he interviewed Dorty for his online ministry show Pray in Jesus Name News.

“Last month we met Mr. Dorty for the first time at the Western Conservative Summit and interviewed him on our show, but of course he did not tell us about his past,” Klingenschmitt wrote in an email Friday night to The Gazette.

He said if provided with evidence of Dorty’s convictions he would remove the segment from the archives of his online ministry.

Dorty is active in Colorado Republican politics and is with American Conservatives of Color.

The Gazette reported in March that Dorty was convicted twice over two decades of sexually assaulting two children.

Dorty, and those who support him, say he has served his time and has been rehabilitated with the help of God.

Klingenschmitt was criticized last week for saying on a different episode of his broadcast that allowing gay Boy Scout troop leaders would lead to young boys being molested while camping.

He then said that Jesus said it would be better for child molesters to be drowned then to have them face the wrath of God.

“It’s not about the sexual pleasure of adults,” Klingenschmitt said in the video. “It should be about protecting innocent children. Because the Bible says this in Matthew Chapter 18: ‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.'”

He did not say that he thought gay Boy Scout troop leaders should be drowned, which is what many news outlets reported.

Klingenschmitt called for the head of the Colorado Democratic Party, Rick Palacio, to recall a press statement sent out that said Klingenschmitt wanted gay troop leaders to be drowned.

“I respectfully demand an immediate retraction from Rick Palacio and the Democrat Party of Colorado, for defaming me with false allegations that I called for gay leaders to be ‘drowned,'” Klingenschmitt wrote in an email. “I have never called for violence against any person, and I resent his false statements claiming that I did, in his deceptive email to thousands of his easily misled Democrat followers who now believe his lies without checking the facts.  It’s sad when Democrat leaders deceive their people to win elections. As a Chaplain I may quote the Bible too boldly, but at least I speak the truth.”

Klingenschmitt refused to apologize for his statements about gay troop leaders being likely to assault boys.

The Colorado Republican Party issued a statement about Klingenschmitt condemning his speech and reiterating that Klingenschmitt doesn’t speak for the party.

Colorado State Representative Gordon Klingenschmitt looks up into the balcony during the first day of the Colorado General Assembly on Wednesday, January 7, 2015. Klingenschmitt is a Republican representing House District 15. (The Gazette/Jerilee Bennett)