Ben Carson is a renown neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, with an impressive range of publications and Chair appointments and whatnot. I'm not going to go into what a big deal he is, because you can probably see that on his wikipedia page. Or you can read one of his books and he'll tell you himself. The man has power in the medical community, and he has a reputation of being a technically gifted surgeon, good enough that people would seek him out when they had a particularly awful or rare disease. The man's 61 years old though, near retirement, and of late he has started to step from the medical world to the political realm as one of the republicans' alleged championed candidates for the next presidential election. He's a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, and he's not afraid to let the world know his religiously-guided views.
Here's where I find his comments upsetting and ironic (besides comparing gay marriage with NAMBLA and bestiality, because, well, I assume most rational people think that's fucked up): In the clip, Carson describes the establishment of heterosexual marriage as a "well-established fundamental pillar of society" and says that gays, pedophiles, and zoophiles (had to look that one up) "don't get to change the definition [of marriage]." He goes on to say that he's against anyone who "wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of the pillars of society."
Let's take a look at those statements. It seems to me that by "pillars of society" Dr. Carson is referring to the Seven Pillars of Society as defined by Christian followers. The Seven Pillars are: Government, Family, Business, Media, Education, Religion, and Arts & Entertainment. We could also take "pillars of society" to mean the American traditions that have been upheld for generations, which have become ingrained in our culture through the centuries. Either way, his argument here doesn't make much sense to me.
In his books, Dr. Carson relates the many barriers he had growing up. He was from a poor family, raised by a single mom, and he was an African American during a time that the vast majority of doctors were white. Color barriers were possibly the strongest walls he had to break through to become a physician, and he describes holding fast to his religion, which got him through many of his darkest hours. So what, you may ask?
Back in the day, slavery was defended with religion. Proponents would cite Bible verses to justify keeping slaves, to justify their mistreatment, and to sometimes justify raping them:
"slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling" (Ephesians 6:5), or "tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect" (Titus 2:9).
If you asked slaveholders, opponents of slavery could be described as wanting to "change the fundamental pillars of society", to destroy the masters' livelihood and to directly disobey the Word of God. So what happened? Why don't we have slaves anymore? Those questions might anger some individuals, because the answer is so blatantly clear. A morally good society toppled the senseless, racist, absolutely evil practice of servitude with a Civil War, though the war for true integration of African Americans continued into the 20th Century (and still continues to this day, to be honest). Dr. Ben Carson was born (in 1951) at an interesting time, a time of intense racism, but a time where early integration was taking hold. He reaped some of the benefits of the bloodshed during the 19th Century, where those "pillars of society" were shaken and eventually brought to the ground. He could become a neurosurgeon because those pillars no longer existed and were ever-so-slowly being replaced by new ones.
Now Ben Carson is trying to reinforce other pillars, to prevent some individuals from achieving the same equality that he dreamed of as he went through school. To continue his analogy, and to make my views perfectly clear if they weren't before, I think that some ugly, moldy, fading, crumbling pillars of society need to be hit with a wrecking ball so newer, stronger ones can be built in their place to support the modern architecture of society. Interracial marriage and women's rights, as two examples, are other pillars recently constructed from the wreckage of age-old traditions. Not many sane people would argue that women need to stay in the kitchen and tend to children at home forever, but that wasn't the case only a few generations ago.
Unfortunately for Dr. Ben, not everyone seems to share his opinions on gay marriage. He was scheduled to speak at the commencement for Hopkins Medical School this year, but due to student protests over his comments, and the above statement by the dean of the school, he decided to step down from the job. Here's a quote from his apology letter to Johns Hopkins:
"Although I do believe marriage is between a man and a woman, there are much less offensive ways to make that point. I hope all will look at a lifetime of service over some poorly chosen words."
And here I will make my last point. The "poorly chosen words" that he describes refers to comparing homosexual individuals to pedophiles and zoophiles, not to his "pillars of society" comment. Not only is he an ass for saying these demeaning comments, to me it appears that his moral compass has somehow lost its center, if it was ever even magnetized correctly in the first place. For me, it is not these "poorly chosen words" that so angers me, it's his deep-rooted opinion of homosexuals within the recesses of his heart that truly upsets me. It upsets me that this man is (was?) a highly respected neurosurgeon, representative of not only himself or Johns Hopkins, but in a way a representative for physicians and the medical community, whether he wants to be or not. Even a lifetime of service, or a CV 60 pages long, doesn't change the fact that I no longer have a desire to shake his hand.
I wish to say, from a lowly soon-to-be doctor with respect for every patient regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation, to a seasoned, respected, accomplished, world-renown neurosurgeon with a giant CV:
Fuck you, Dr. Carson.
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