Dr. Ben Carson stood by his claim on Fox News that legalizing gay marriage opens the door to pedophilia and bestiality, but suggested he might have chose his words better if he had a second chance.
It would be a stretch to look at his latest clarification, which he gave in an interview to the Baltimore Sun, as an apology.
“I think people have completely taken the wrong meaning out of what I was saying,” Carson said. “First of all, I certainly believe gay people should have all the rights that anybody else has. What I was basically saying is that as far as marriage is concerned that has traditionally been between a man and a woman and nobody should be able to change that.”
Nonetheless, he conceded that “perhaps the examples were not the best choice of words, and I certainly apologize if I offended anyone….the point that I was making was that no group of individuals, whoever they are, whatever their belief systems, gets to change traditional definitions. The reason I believe the way I do, I will readily confess, is because I am a Christian who believes in The Bible.”
In his Fox News appearance earlier this week, Carson said heterosexual marriage was “a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and 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.”
Carson told MSNBC on Friday he may step down from his upcoming commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University amid a petition from medical students to replace him due to his recent behavior.
