Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield on Sunday was denied service at a Knoxville restaurant over his anti-gay views.

The Republican lawmaker told ABC News that the owner of The Bistro at Bijou restaurant refused to seat him and his friends.

“We were just standing there waiting for a table, and this woman came up to me saying, 'I'm not serving you, I'm not serving you, you hate gay people,'” Campfield recollected. “I said, 'Ma'am I'm not a homophobe,' and I offered to send her links from the CDC website to back up what I said about homosexuality being a dangerous lifestyle, and being a risky behavior.”

Campfield created a firestorm of controversy last week when he said that a gay man was responsible for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and that only gay men acquire the disease.

When Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile asked, “What's harmful about [homosexuality]?” Campfield asserted that “AIDS came from the homosexual community.”

“It was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. … It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”

“My understanding is that it is virtually – not completely, but virtually – impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex. … [It is] very rarely [transmitted vaginally],” Campfield insisted as Signorile denied the claim.

Campfield, the chief sponsor a bill dubbed “Don't Say Gay,” which would outlaw the discussion of sexual minorities in Tennessee's public schools before the ninth grade, defended his remarks.

“I was talking last week on a radio show and I said the homosexual lifestyle is a dangerous lifestyle. There are heterosexuals in Africa that do have it, but the odds of a person getting AIDS in America is much less unless you're having sex with a high risk group,” Campfield asserted.

Restaurant owner Martha Boggs said she tossed out Campfield because his “comments have gone from stupid to dangerous and I think someone needs to stand up to him.”