WASHINGTON — A Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Kentucky said that same-sex marriage could lead to a parent claiming marriage to his or her child to gain tax benefits and other privileges.

Louisville businessman Matt Bevin is challenging five-term Sen. Mitch McConnell in the May 20 GOP primary. Bevin said Wednesday that marriage should retain its traditional definition as being between a man and a woman.

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Bevin told a Christian radio program hosted by Janet Mefferd: “If it’s all right to have same-sex marriages, why not define a marriage – because at the end of the day, a lot of this ends up being taxes and who can visit who in the hospital, and there’s other repercussions and things that come with this -so a person may want to define themselves as being married to one of their children so that they could then in fact pass on certain things to that child financially and otherwise.”

“Where do you draw the line?” he said. “And if, in fact, a person can arbitrarily draw it here, why not could someone else draw it arbitrarily draw it somewhere else?”

Bevin spokeswoman Rachel Semmel said Bevin was not connecting gay marriage with incest. She said he was speaking of questions such as “hospital visitations and benefits.”

McConnell is the Senate minority leader.

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