Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson claimed in November that activists will “try to ruin” the lives of Christians over “the gay marriage issue.”

Carson made his remarks during an appearance on Kingdom Connection with Jentezen Franklin.

He claimed that LGBT rights activists use “hate speech ridicule” to silence opponents.

“The way it works now is they target you and they have all kind of hate speech ridicule, if there’s a way they can bring action against you they will do that, try to ruin your life,” Carson said. “Look at all the people who because of their religious convictions and their belief in what the Bible says have lost their livelihood and they're put in jeopardy over the gay marriage issue, when in fact this is supposed to be a country where you live and let live.”

“I personally don't have any problem with any two people, regardless of what their feelings are, of living together, of getting a lawyer to create some documents so they can share property and have hospital visitation rights, but to change the definition of marriage. The problem is once you do that for one group, why wouldn't you have to do that for the next group?”

“If evangelical Christians don't stand up,” he warned, “it's going to be too late.”