Ben Carson: 'Abnormal' Trans People Don't Deserve 'Extra Rights'

During a rambling interview on a Catholic TV show, monitored by Right Wing Watch, retired neurosurgeon-turned-presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson dismissed transgender civil rights as "garbage" and "silly," before repeating his warning that marriage equality could lead to the legalization of polygamy and the destruction of America.

"We are absolutely destroying ourselves because we are paying attention to political correctness," Carson told Matthew Franck of the Witherspoon Institute (a right-wing think tank backed by the anti-LGBT Family Research Council) on Catholic TV network EWTN.

Carson referred to LGBT protections from discrimination as "extra rights" and described trans folks as "a few people who perhaps are abnormal." He continued to dismiss equal protections for LGBT people:

"You see how silly this is. I mean, it's beyond ridiculous that you take the most abnormal situation and then you make everyone else conform to it. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. That's one of the very reasons that I have been an outspoken opponent of things like gay marriage. I don't have any problem with gay people doing anything they want to do. You know, it's a free country, there's freedom of association. However, when you now impose your value system on everybody else and change fundamental definitions and principles of society, I have a big problem with that. Everybody is equal, everybody has equal rights, but nobody gets extra rights. And when we start trying to impose the extra rights based on a few people who perhaps are abnormal, where does that lead?"

Watch EWTN's interview with Carson, as clipped by Right Wing Watch, below: