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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A Tennessee lawmaker accused of making racists Facebook comments has responded to the accusations.

Republican Rep. Sheila Butt’s Facebook post said, “It is time for a Council on Christian Relations and an NAAWP in this Country.”

She was commenting on an open letter from the Council on American-Islamic Relations urging potential Republican presidential candidates to reject Islamophobia and reach out to American Muslim voters.

CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, says the reference to “NAAWP” is an apparently racist twist to the name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.

The Tennessee Black Caucus said Thursday it wants an apology from Butt first, but would ultimately like to see her removed as House GOP floor leader.

WKRN News 2 reports that Butt told the organization her comment refers to “Western People.”

“I made up that acronym at that moment,” Butt told News 2. “And you would see in the next post that I posted that it concerned Western Peoples and Western Culture. So for David Duke to have made that acronym or used that acronym years ago, certainly I was totally unaware of that.”

See the video here.

Butt also issued a statement regarding the comment:

“It saddens me that we have come to a place in our society where every comment by a conservative is automatically scrutinized as being racist. Instead of realizing my post was actually about making sure that every race, religion, gender, and culture has a seat at the table, liberal groups have once again incorrectly and falsely jumped the gun. It seems to me that if we could take the focus off of race, as I am convinced the Lord does, we could better solve the problems in our state and nation that face every single one of us.”

CAIR is calling on the Tennessee Republican Party leaders to repudiate the comment, and Tennessee GOP Chairman Chris Devaney responded.

“Voters elected Republicans to focus on job growth, education reform, and to eliminate government waste,” said Devaney. “Representative Butt’s comments are her own and do not reflect the views of the Republican Party.”

Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini also spoke about the issue. She said, “At a time when nearly 300,000 hardworking Tennesseans don’t have health care because Republicans refuse to support Insure Tennessee, it is disappointing to see Rep. Butt spending her time spreading her own poisonous personal beliefs on Facebook instead of focusing on passing legislation that would help hundreds of thousands of hardworking Tennesseans across the state.”

*WKRN News 2 contributed to this report.