Chris Rowe, the chair of the New Castle County Republican Committee in Delaware is being forced to resign his position after using a derogatory term for a gay man in a Facebook post. Rowe agreed to resign after GOP chairwoman Jane Brady called him Wednesday and asked him to step down from the appointed position.

Rowe has said that he making the decision “begrudgingly and only under duress.”

Rowe’s Facebook homophobic post about last Sunday’s Texas church shooting has been removed from his page.

“Faggots cannot handle reality,’’ Rowe had posted in response to a friend’s comment on his page.

After the post was discovered Rowe told the Delaware News Journal earlier that he wouldn’t apologize for using the slur. He called it “locker room talk” with a close friend and said he isn’t homophobic.

But after being told to resign he changed his story:

“I just got frustrated and used an improper word,’’ said Rowe “I made a mistake. God doesn’t create perfect people and I can verify that because I ain’t one.”

He said he never intended to offend gay people or anyone else.

“If the use of this word in any manner, injured or upset or really hit hard at the emotions of an individual and hurt them, really hurt them inside, I’m heartfully sorry,’’ Rowe said.

Regardless state GOP chair Jane Brady, a former Superior Court judge and attorney general who appointed Rowe, reiterated Friday that he had to step down.

Brady said she had spoken to many people within the party who were alarmed by the statement, and some who were not, before deciding her course of action.

“One of the people that called me said that they felt that this was a word that was used when they were in boot camp all the time, and I said, Well, what was the connotation then? It’s the same as the connotation now. It’s offensive.’ ”