The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

According to The Washington Post, Carson's confirmation came down mostly along party lines, with six Democrats and one independent voting for Carson.

Critics have questioned whether Carson is qualified to manage HUD, which has a budget of nearly $49 billion.

Carson, who grew up poor in Detroit and went on to become a renowned neurosurgeon, dropped out of the Republican race for the presidential nomination in March after disappointing results on Super Tuesday. He is a vocal opponent of LGBT rights, as are many of President Donald Trump's picks.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Carson told lawmakers that he's opposed to “extra rights” for LGBT people.

“You have in the past raised questions about whether LGBTQ people should enjoy the same rights as everyone else. Do you believe that HUD has a duty to take actions that promote equal access to housing opportunities for LGBTQ people?” Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown asked.

“Of course I would enforce all the laws of the land,” Carson replied. “And I believe that all Americans, regardless of any of the things you mentioned, should be protected by the law. What I have mentioned in the past is that no one gets extra rights. Extra rights means you get to redefine everything for everybody else.”

In 2013, Carson was pressured to apologize for comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality and pedophilia. Despite the apology, he continued to make outrageous claims against the LGBT community, possibly in hopes of winning over Christian conservatives during the presidential primaries.

Carson returned to the headlines for a homophobic remark in January of 2015, when he warned gay couples against pushing bakers opposed to marriage equality, saying that the bakers might “poison” their cake.

Two months later, Carson argued that being gay is a choice, “because a lot of people go into prison straight and when they come out they're gay.”

(Related: Dan Savage invites Ben Carson to suck his dick to see if it turns him gay.)

During the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where he endorsed Trump for president, Carson called changing gender the “height of absurdity.”