WATCH: Marriage Equality Is an 'Extra Right,' Says Right-Wing Activist

Ben Carson, a rising conservative star, says gay people deserve equal rights but not 'extra rights' -- the right to marry a same-sex partner being among the latter.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

March 10 2014 7:44 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

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If you're gay, being able to marry the person you love is not a matter of equal rights but instead "extra rights," according to conservative activist Ben Carson.

Carson made the remark, a new variation on the "special rights" trope, over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of the right wing. "Of course gay people should have the same rights as everyone else," he said. "But they don't get extra rights, they don't get to redefine marriage."

Carson, a physician seen as a rising star on the right, also denied that he ever equated being gay with bestiality, despite a comment last year in which he said no one should redefine marriage, "be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality."

He eventually backtracked on that remark, but over the weekend, he criticized those who perceived him as putting homosexuality and bestiality in the same category. "Of course they're not the same thing," he said. "Anybody who believes that is a dummy, but anybody who believes somebody who says that somebody said that is a dummy, that's the problem."

Watch a clip below, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.