WATCH: Joe Biden Compares Selma and Stonewall, Disses Ben Carson

Displaying his typical outspokenness, in a Friday speech Vice President Joe Biden drew parallels between the African-American civil rights movement and the LGBT rights movement and expressed amazement at conservative activist Ben Carson's remarks about homosexuality being a choice.

"Selma and Stonewall were basically the same movement," Biden said while addressing the Human Rights Campaign's Spring Equality Convention in Washington, D.C.. His speech came the day before a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of a civil rights protest in Selma, Ala., which saw marchers brutalized by police. President Obama is attending the Selma event.

Biden also took on the comments made earlier this week by Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate, that being gay is a choice; Carson, who has since apologized for the statements, cited gay sex in prison as evidence. "Now, every ridiculous assertion, from Dr. Carson on," Biden said. "I mean -- Jesus, God. I mean, oh, God. I mean, it's kind of hard to fathom, isn't it?"

The vice president is a longtime LGBT rights supporter who spoke out in favor of marriage equality in 2012, shortly before President Obama did. "I told the president I wasn't going to change my brand," Biden said at the HRC convention.

Biden also reiterated his and the administration's support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which is stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress. "We have to pass the federal nondiscrimination legislation, and we need to pass it now," he said. Other subjects he addressed included transgender rights and widespread homelessness among LGBT youth.

Watch Biden's full speech below, courtesy of HRC.