Ben Carson Didn’t Expect Anyone To Be Offended by His Bigoted Comments

5/30/14
 
   < < Go Back
 
from Media Matters,
5/30/14:

In New Book, Ben Carson Writes He Was Shocked To Discover Gay People Don’t Like Being Compared To Bestiality Supporters.

Ben Carson was unaware that the gay community considers it “particularly abhorrent” to be compared to practitioners of bestiality before the firestorm of criticism that came when he linked the two on national television, the Fox News contributor explains in his forthcoming book.

Carson, a famed Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, became a rising conservative media star after criticizing Obamacare during a speech attended by President Obama at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast. But his reputation took a hit when he compared marriage equality advocates to supporters of bestiality and pedophilia in a March 2013 Fox News appearance, saying, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition. So, it’s not something against gays. It’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has significant ramifications.”

Carson was harshly criticized for his comments, including by LGBT students at the Johns Hopkins medical institutions. Carson apologized “if anybody was offended” on MSNBC, then called his critics “racist” on conservative talk radio. After more than half of the graduating class at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine called for his replacement as commencement speaker, he agreed to step down.

In his new book, One Nation: What We Can All Do To Save America’s Future, Carson lashes out at the “secular progressives” he claims twisted his words, as well as the “gay activists” at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who he says acted as “instigators, accusing me of being a homophobe.” He concludes by saying that it was only when he spoke to “prominent members of the gay community at Johns Hopkins” before withdrawing as commencement speaker that he learned that they find bestiality comparisons “particularly abhorrent”.

More From Media Matters: