Citing his anti-gay rhetoric, the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has placed conservative celebrity
Ben Carson on its “extremist watch list.”
The former Johns Hopkins University
pediatric neurosurgeon turned Fox News commentator has previously
brushed aside speculation that he's planning a 2016 bid for the White
House. But two months ago he suggested that God has been nudging him
along.
“I feel fingers,” he said in
response to CBN News' David Brody's question, “How is that
conversation going with God about this potential presidential run?
Has He grabbed you by the collar yet?”
“May I potentially see you [on the
presidential campaign trail] soon?” Brody asked.
“I think there is a good chance you
might,” he answered.
In 2013, Carson stepped down as
commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for
linking marriage equality to bestiality and pedophilia, which drew a
loud outcry from students and faculty. In apologizing, Carson said
people had “taken the wrong meaning out of what I was saying.”
More recently, he suggested that bakers
opposed to marriage equality might poison the wedding cakes of gay
couples.
“What I have a problem with is when
people try to force people to act against their beliefs because they
say 'they're discriminating against me.' So they can go right down
the street and buy a cake, but no, let's bring a suit against this
person because I want them to make my cake even though they don't
believe in it. Which is really not all that smart because they might
put poison in that cake.”
The SPLC specifically cited Carson's
anti-gay rhetoric in his “extremist
files” profile.