A
rising Republican star doubled-down Saturday on his opposition to
same-sex marriage, saying gay people “don’t get to redefine marriage.”
Ben Carson, a conservative commentator and former neurosurgeon at
Johns Hopkins University, made the comments on stage during the 2014
Conservative Political Action Conference.
“Of course gay people should have the same rights as everyone else,”
Carson said. “But they don’t get extra rights, they don’t get to
redefine marriage.”
Carson has a history of making inflammatory statements against gay
people. Last year, he gave up his speaking role at a commencement
ceremony for Johns Hopkins under pressure following controversial
remarks he made on Fox News comparing gay people to advocates for
bestiality and pedophilia.
On stage at CPAC, Carson denied he ever made such a comparison and
said reporting on his televised remarks was a fabrication of the media,
although he said to applause he still believes “marriage is between a
man and a woman.”
“Of course they’re not the same thing,” Carson continued. “Anybody
who believes that is a dummy, but anybody who believes somebody who says
that somebody said that is a dummy, that’s the problem.”
Carson made the controversial remarks last year when speaking to
conservative commentator Sean Hannity about restricting marriage to
unions betweens one man and one woman.
“It’s a well-established fundamental pillar of society,” Carson said.
“And no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy
Love Association,) be they people who believe in bestiality — it doesn’t
matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.”
Carson makes some of the extensive comments against same-sex marriage
during an iteration of CPAC where Republican elected officials shied away from LGBT issues and conflict emerged among the conservative speakers on marriage equality.
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