M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Ben Carson says being gay is a choice, citing prison example

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that “a lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.”

The remarks were made on CNN’s “New Day” in response to a question from host Chris Cuomo, who asked if Carson thought being gay was a “choice.”


“Absolutely,” Carson replied.

Asked why, he went on to explain his prison theory. “So did something happen while they were in there?” he said. “Ask yourself that question.”

He continued, invoking his argument against same-sex marriage: “Why do gay people want to get married? Because they want to have various rights,” he told Cuomo. “Property rights, visitation rights … Why can’t any two human beings, I don’t care what their sexual orientation is, why can’t they have the legal right to do those things?”

Later Wednesday in a statement to CNN, Carson backed down a bit from his morning remarks.

“I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation,” he said. I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive.”

Carson made waves in 2013 when he compared gay marriage to pedophilia and bestiality in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.”

He later withdrew from a commencement speech at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine after students and staff expressed outrage at the remarks.

“Of course, gay people should have the same rights as everyone else,” Carson told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2014. “But they don’t get extra rights. They don’t get to redefine marriage.”