C-Span screenshot
Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon and professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, on Saturday pushed back at liberal criticism of his views during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., bringing the crowd to its feet, the Baltimore Sun reports.
“I hate PC [political correctness], and I will continue to defy the PC police who have tried in many cases to shut me up,” he said.
He struck back at criticism he received after a March appearance on Fox News, when he compared same-sex marriage to bestiality. During the interview with Sean Hannity, he said, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [North American Boy/Man Love Association], be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn't matter what they are. They don't get to change the definition.”
The comparison sparked a firestorm of controversy in mainstream and social media. On Saturday, he called those critics “dummies,” the Sun says.
“Because I said nobody gets to change the definition or marriage, and because I happened to mention some categories, they said, ‘Carson said gay marriage and bestiality are the same thing,’ ” he told the CPAC crowd.
Carson, a favorite Republican presidential candidate for 2016, is third in a straw poll behind Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Read more at the Baltimore Sun.