Carson Has Previously Called Equality for LGBT People in Marriage and Other Areas ‘Extra Rights’
Dr. Ben Carson says he is opposed to LGBT people getting “extra rights,” but will follow the law if he is confirmed to become the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The retired neurosurgeon was asked about LGBT civil rights by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) during his confirmation hearing Thursday morning to become Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
“I would enforce all the laws of the land,” the former GOP presidential candidate said. “Of course, I think all Americans should be protected by the law.”
Carson, unabashedly, then offered up a disturbing thought.
“What I have said before is I don’t think anyone should get ‘extra rights,'” Carson told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
In 2015 Carson also talked about “extra rights,” saying in an interview, calling them “one of the things that I don’t particularly like about” the LGBT movement. “I think everybody has equal rights, but I’m not sure that anybody should have extra rights – extra rights when it comes to redefining everything for everybody else and imposing your view on everybody else, when the way that this country was designed, it was live and let live.”
He sharpened that argument later, saying his definition of “extra rights” includes marriage for same-sex couples and the right to public accommodations for transgender people.
“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 asked.
“Everybody gets equal rights, but nobody gets extra rights, extra rights to change everything for everybody else to suit them,” Carson insisted in January of 2016.
Carson has also claimed that transgender people shouldn’t receive “extra rights,” such as being allowed to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity, claiming that they were “a few people who perhaps are abnormal.”Â
Carson’s claim that he will follow the law when it comes to the civil rights of LGBT people is almost meaningless, as there are no federal laws protecting LGBT people from being fired from their jobs, and yes, being allowed equality in areas of public accommodation, and credit and housing – some of the main areas of HUD’s focus.