Following the bulk of the coverage on his initial deleted tweets, Professor Timothy Farage put out the following apology letter on July 25th.
“A week or so ago, I tweeted about an article dealing with monkeypox. The article said that a common way to transmit this disease was by men having sex with men. My comment about the article was I thought that doctors should try to find a cure for male homosexuality. I actually thought that this was a compassionate comment because I’ve had a few homosexual friends who wished they were heterosexual. Since then, I’ve received a great deal of negative feedback. And it is clear to me that my comments were offensive and hurtful to many. I promise you that I had no intention of offending anyone. And I deeply apologize to those who were. Students who have taken courses from me know that I harbor no ill will towards anyone, and especially not because of their sexuality, or race, or country of origin. Please forgive me.”
Weak apology. The ‘I’m sorry you were offended’ apology is the universal way of saying ‘I stand by what I said, but it sucks that you got hurt’. Also, his comment “Students who have taken courses from me know that I harbor no ill will towards anyone” is far from true according to the several comments I’ve seen from his former students about his persistent offensive comments.