Dr. Ben Carson tells CPAC: Homosexuals ‘don’t get extra rights’
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 10, 2014 – At CPAC, former Marine Oliver North and Dr. Ben Carson reminded cheering crowds that social issues are an integral part of America's future.
Carson, the famed neurosurgeon and Johns Hopkins professor emeritus who entered the political limelight after criticizing President Obama during the National Prayer Breakfast last year, said that “of course gay people should have the same rights as everyone else. But they don't get extra rights. They don't get to redefine marriage.”
He also pointed to the importance of “putting what God says in front of what any man says.” At the end of the national anthem, Americans “must remember that we cannot be free if we are not brave," he added.
North, a longtime political commentator and former Reagan administration official, criticized those who “say that we must ignore social issues, like the definition of marriage and the sanctity of life, religious freedoms.” He said they “are not social issues,” but instead “deeply moral and spiritual issues and they should be a part of America's elections.”
He also said, “In the 1850's, a political party was born on the idea of a great moral issue - human bondage, the abolition of slavery in America. If we as conservatives cease to be a place where people of faith and those who believe in strong moral values can come, we will cease to be a political force in America.”
CPAC was largely empty of life and family issues in 2014, with no panels and very few pro-life groups in attendance. Live Action founder Lila Rose addressed this in an interview with Hot Air's Ed Morrissey at CPAC, saying “the right to life” is “the most important issue of the day.”
