RICHMOND, Va. – Comments made by Virginia Republican State Senator Richard Black are coming back to haunt him just he begins a run for Congress. In a 2005 speech, made when he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Black made an impassioned call for the legalization of spousal rape.

In the speech, he claimed that he “did not know how on earth you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape, when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, and so forth. There’s no injury, there’s no separation or anything.

“I mean why else does a man get married but to have unlimited access to a woman he can have sex with whenever he wants?” he continued. “If the wife doesn’t like it, she shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.”

Asked about his 2005 comment recently, Senator Black sent out an email response which stated that he “was not taking a position for or against marital rape.” The email went on to say that Black’s position on rape was evolving, and he was in the midst of looking at all sides of the issue.

“My 2005 comments are very outdated now,” he said. “For example, I’m told many women no longer wear a nightie. In fact, some may not wear anything in bed. In that case, how on Earth could the husband be accused of rape? You might roll over in your sleep and accidentally rape her. There’s a lot of wiggle room here.”

Black did say that he was holding firm on his belief that polygamy is better than homosexuality. “When you talk about polygamy, at least it functions biologically,” he said in December. “It’s just more natural.”