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. 

“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. 

RELATED: 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. 

“Everybody gets equal rights, but nobody gets extra rights, extra rights to change everything for everybody else to suit them,” Carson decreed. 

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.” 

Watch:

 

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Hat tip and video: Right Wing Watch
Image: Screenshot via iTBN