Ben Carson is receiving a lot of attention as a potential presidential candidate, but he’s now also getting noticed as an apparent “anti-gay” extremist.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which considers itself a civil rights advocacy group, recently placed the famed neurosurgeon on its “Extremist Watch List” — a list that mainly includes neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.
Carson was included for allegedly being “anti-gay.” The SPLC considers his opposition to gay marriage to be hateful and worthy of inclusion in the list.
The remarks the group cites for determining Carson is an extremist include this line from his book, “America the Beautiful”: “[I]f we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.”
Other evidence for his supposed bigotry towards the LGBT community includes giving a speech at an event hosted by a group that opposes gay marriage.
The SPLC also consider this line in support of a flat tax rate as radically outside the mainstream: “What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the first individual in the universe, God, and he’s given us a system. It’s called a tithe.”
They considered this as a statement “endorsing biblical economic practices for 21st century America.”
The SPLC is most famous for a man using the group’s “Hate Map” to find the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C. The man, Floyd Lee Corkins, entered the headquarters lobby in August 2012 in an attempt to “to kill as many people as possible” and “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces.” The reason for his murderous desire was simply because he disagreed with the conservative organization about gay marriage. Corkins managed to shoot a security guard before that very same guard disarmed him. (RELATED: Family Research Council Shooter Pleads Guilty)
The Federal Bureau of Investigations removed links to the Southern Poverty Law Center from its civil rights division’s web page in March, breaking ties with the group that inspired the would-be mass shooter. (RELATED: FBI severs ties with liberal, domestic terrorism-inspiring Southern Poverty Law Center)
In May, the SPLC labelled critics of Common Core as “far-right extremists.” Its report on the subject claims that opposition to the education standards is part of a large “radical right” scheme to eliminate public education. (RELATED: Leftist, Terrorism-Inspiring Southern Poverty Law Center Labels Common Core Critics ‘Far-Right Extremists’)
(h/t Legal Insurrection)