Conservative and often controversial former neurosurgeon Ben Carson said on Wednesday night that he was “irritated” by the comparison between the fight for same-sex marriage rights and the Civil Rights Movement because he doesn’t believe there is an overt segregation against gays, CNN reports.
“I was a little bit irritated that he was equating the whole [gay marriage] issue with the Civil Rights movement. Because, quite frankly, I didn’t remember any times when there were signs up that says, you know, ‘everybody else here and gay people have to drink at this fountain,'” he said.
Carson who is also a harsh critic of President Barrack Obama announced last month that he will be seeking the Republican Party Presidential nomination for 2016, as reported by New York Times. The ex-neurosurgeon has no prior experience in politics but has managed to garner a huge conservative base due to his conservative agendas and harsh criticism against President Obama and gay marriage.
New York Times reported his candidacy announcement came amid an already crowded field where other conservative lawmakers have also announced their candidacy. Other well known conservatives are former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, and recently,former CEO of Hewlett Packard, Carly Florina became the first woman candidate to announce her interest in the Republican Presidential nomination.
Ben Carson is a well known critic of the food stamp and often pour scorn on the welfare system, citing his own upbringing as a poor black kid rising to the pinnacle of his profession without relying on any form of assistance from the government. He has been anti-thesis to the liberal agenda of the Democrats and never shies to throw barbs on President Obama calling his economic system, especially those on welfare a failure.
He busted onto the political scene in 2013 with a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast that denounced the country’s “moral decay” and Mr. Obama’s health care. In the same year, during a commencement address at John Hopkins, he linked same-sex marriage with pedophilia and was forced to retract the statement since he was an employee there.
The other controversial issue he recently touched on was President Obama’s Health Care Law calling it the ‘worse thing since slavery’ in America. Perhaps his most controversial comment ever was in March this year, saying homosexuality was a choice by citing prisoners who went in to prisons straight and came out as gays, a statement he eventually retracted and apologized for.
