Nancy Mace Upsets Conservatives With Sex Talk at Prayer Breakfast

Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, is facing criticism from some conservatives for a remark about sex she made during a Wednesday prayer breakfast.

"Patrick, my fiancé, tried to pull me over by my waist this morning in bed," Mace said while addressing the prayer meeting attendees. "And I was like, 'No, baby, we don't got time for that this morning. I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.'"

Laughing, she added: "A little TMI [too much information]. He can wait. I'll see him later tonight."

Footage of the moment, which occurred during the annual prayer breakfast held by Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, was shared on social media. Commenters soon began posting, and some expressed displeasure with Mace—who is Christian—for openly discussing premarital sex. Others said they felt a prayer breakfast was not the proper venue for talking about intimacy.

"Imagine the level of disdain one must have for Christians to smile and say this at a prayer breakfast," Brandon Gill, the founder of conservative online outlet D.C. Enquirer, tweeted.

"Nancy Mace just said she turned down sex from her NOT husband but her fiancé this morning in bed because she had to get to the PRAYER BREAKFAST," Graham Allen, host of the right-wing Dear America podcast, said on Twitter. "I'll take 'what is a sin for $500 Alex.'"

Newsweek reached out to Mace via email for comment.

"Rep. Nancy Mace says she had to skip having sex this morning to go to a prayer breakfast. Quaint," right-wing social media activist Ian Miles Cheong wrote.

Not everyone was upset by her candor. Along with her defenders on Twitter, journalist Will Folks, who was present during the breakfast, said fellow guests were amused by her comments.

"Several jaws dropped, but most in attendance—including Scott—laughed as Mace recalled the story," Folks wrote on FITSNews, an independent website he founded that covers events in South Carolina.

Folks added that "while immediate word on whether Bryant's patience was rewarded (we haven't made any official inquiries), Mace's joke was all anyone attending Scott's breakfast was talking about."

Independent journalist Brian Krassenstein, who frequently champions liberal causes, also spoke out in support of Mace.

"If you are on either side of the aisle and are more worried about GOP Rep. Nancy Mace's comments at a prayer breakfast today than immigrant children getting cut up by razor wire placed in the Rio Grande, homelessness, kids getting shot up at schools, our drug epidemic, or the mental health issues in this country, then I'm not sure what to tell you," Krassenstein tweeted.

He added, "Americans need to stop being outraged over people's personal choices which harm no one and concentrate on the things which are destroying lives. Can we all agree to that?"