Ben Carson: Gays And ‘Secular Progressive Movement’ Are ‘Beating People Down’ Over LGBT Rights
Retired Neurosurgeon Falsely Claims Supreme Court Justices Haven’t Read The U.S. Constitution
Dr. Ben Carson for years has made clear his utter animus and disdain for LGBT people. It first became national news when he compared gay people to pedophiles and “people who believe in bestiality,” just weeks after attacking President Barack Obama with whom he shared a stage at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Since then, Carson’s disparaging remarks have grown significantly, and despite his promise to cease goading the LGBT community, he has made a habit of using gay people when he needs or wants to gets attention and support from his far right wing evangelical Christian base.
The GOP presidential candidate whose poll numbers have plummeted sat down late last year with the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s pentecostal Christian evangelical Jentezen Franklin, where the subject of same-sex marriage and the U.S. Constitution came up.
First, Carson falsely claimed that the Founder Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution specifically at an eighth-grade level so everyone could read it. (The Constitution was written at a 17.8 grade level.) He also somehow claimed that the current slate of U.S. Supreme Court justices have not read the Constitution, and constitutional scholars have made a mess of it.
On marriage, LGBT people, and free speech, Carson was quick to attack.
“The way it works now is they target you and they have all kind of hate speech ridicule, if there’s a way they can bring action against you they will do that, try to ruin your life,” the retired neurosurgeon stated, somewhat from experience. Students at Carson’s prestigious Johns Hopkins University petitioned in 2013 to have him removed as commencement speaker after his outrageous anti-LGBT comments.Â
“Look at all the people who because of their religious convictions and their belief in what the Bible says have lost their livelihood and they’re put in jeopardy over the gay marriage issue, when in fact this is supposed to be a country where you live and let live,” Carson continued.
In fact, there are a very few people who have actually “have lost their livelihood” as a result of same-sex marriage.Â
RELATED:Â Ben Carson Tells Lesbian It’s ‘A Long Conversation’ On Whether Or Not She Chose To Be Gay
“I personally don’t have any problem with any two people, regardless of what their feelings are, of living together, of getting a lawyer to create some documents so they can share property and have hospital visitation rights, but to change the definition of marriage, the problem is once you do that for one group, why wouldn’t you have to do that for the next group?,” Carson queried.
Carson may not “have any problem with” two people living together, but in the real world, without a marriage certificate – and at times, even with one – there are numerous reports of couples being refused hospital visitation rights and adoption rights. For example, despite a marriage certificate, Edith Windsor famously was denied her right to untaxed property when her life-long same-sex spouse died. That, of course, became the case that ultimately struck down Section 3 of DOMA.
The good doctor then goes on to insist that because marriage rights have been legally extended to same-sex couples, they must be extended to every other group, none of which he named, and which is false.Â
“Everybody gets equal rights, but nobody gets extra rights, extra rights to change everything for everybody else to suit them,” Carson decreed.Â
In fact, same-sex marriage is not an “extra” right, it’s the same right given to different-sex couples.
Carson then concluded that evangelical Christians must “stand up,†and “not remain silent” or it will be too late. That’s code for “vote for me or it will be too late,” of course.
He continued, bashing “the secular-progressive movement,†which he says “has been very successful” in “beating people down so that they are silent†and having them “sit down and shut up so they can drive the boat.â€Â
Watch:
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Hat tip and video: Right Wing Watch
Image: Screenshot via iTBN
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
