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Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. Gay rights questions have drawn attention in the 2016 presidential campaign after this year’s U.S. Kellogg director Donald Knauss said he also remembers Carson went along with the policy changes. “Ben Carson never came into the boardroom with any kind of social policy commentary,” said Jeffrey Brotman, who chairs Costco’s board. MOCKED BY CLINTONįellow directors said they do not recall Carson opposing any of the initiatives presented to the board. “I certainly don’t see him as some fire-breathing homophobe,” Angelo said. Gregory Angelo, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, which represents gay conservatives, said the corporate initiatives may reflect new social attitudes and may not hold Carson back in primaries. “There is no reason that you can’t be perfectly fair to the gay community,” he said. He echoed those remarks during the debate between Republican candidates in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday when asked about his time on the board of Costco. He has apologized for both statements.īut Carson has said his choices as a director are consistent with his broader claims that he is not anti-gay, only opposed to same-sex marriage: “My general attitude would have been, of course we protect the rights of everybody,” he told Reuters in an interview earlier this month.
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To be sure, Proudfoot said other conservative may be more focused on backing Carson because of his fierce opposition to abortion and give him a pass on the boardroom matters.Ĭarson’s boardroom record appears to clash with his fiery rhetoric on homosexuality in televised interviews: he compared same-sex marriage to bestiality in 2013, and implied in March that sex acts among prison inmates show homosexuality is a choice. “I would look disfavorably on that,” he said.
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Told of Carson’s stance in the boardrooms, Proudfoot said he was surprised and displeased. One of those voters is Lynn Proudfoot, a Republican activist and self-described social conservative in Des Moines, Iowa, who said he has not decided who to support in a party caucus to be held in February. Those voters, King said, will “be the toughest group for him to try to convince that he can divorce boardroom politics from presidential politics.” They worry, for instance, that workers who do not support same-sex marriage could be found in violation of anti-discrimination policies.ĭavid King, a senior lecturer of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said Carson’s stance could cost him backing, especially in the early battleground state of Iowa. Perkins and other conservative leaders say they fear that some of the changes at American corporations could be used to punish employees with unpopular political views. “As he is pursuing the presidency, what he has to make clear is that the board positions should not be reflective of his public policy.” “I think he has to explain this,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Christian conservative lobbying group Family Research Council. Because of such changes the companies now are ranked as some of the best in the United States by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates. BOSTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Ben Carson, frontrunner in the struggle to become Republican presidential candidate, said on Wednesday that his support for gay rights initiatives when he was a director at major companies does not clash with his opposition to gay marriage.īut some leaders in the social conservative movement that has backed Carson say his more than 15-year record on the boards of retailer Costco Wholesale and food manufacturer Kellogg could pose a challenge for him as he seeks the nomination.Ĭarson supported various initiatives at both companies, such as barring discrimination based on gender identity, providing health insurance for employees’ domestic partners, and offering more diversity training.