In his new book A More Perfect Union, Carson tackled the issue of altering laws to allow same-sex couples to marry.
“Laws and regulations should be designed to address normal situations while providing special mechanisms for the creation of exceptions in abnormal situations,” Carson writes, according to PinkNews. “Changing the law governing the normal situation in order to accommodate the abnormal situation is like requiring that car seats be designed to accommodate conjoined twins as well as anatomically normal children.
“The more sensible thing would be to require car seats to accommodate typical children and design special car seats for atypical children as needed,” he continues. “This principle can be applied to a host of situations in our nation. For example, most people are heterosexual, and changing the definition of marriage to suit those outside that definition is unnecessarily complicated.”
TJ Helmstetter, Democratic National Committee spokesperson, took Carson’s unusual stance to attack both him and the Republican field for their outdated views on marriage equality.
“Today, Ben Carson has released a great summary of the entire Republican field’s talking points. Thanks Ben Carson!” Helmstetter stated. “Our children’s freedom is threatened by abortion. Immigrant families should be deported. Gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry.
“We’ve heard it all before from the Republican field, and now we’re reading it in Ben Carson’s book,” he continued. “Carson, Trump, Bush, Fiorina, Rubio and the others — it’s no coincidence that they agree on so much. They would shut down the government to defund Planned Parenthood, and they’d all take our country backwards.”
Carson currently polls second for the Republican nomination, behind the ever buoyant Donald Trump.
Organizers of the annual Tucson Pride festival have dissolved the organization’s board and canceled the upcoming 2026 Pride festival and all related events.
As reported by the Arizona Daily Star, the two-member board -- Sam Cloud and Jeff Fulgham -- announced the decision in a note posted to the Tucson Pride website and its social media accounts on January 21, exactly one month before the festival was scheduled to take place.
"This decision was not made lightly," the note reads. "We recognize the deep importance Tucson Pride has held in our community since 1977, serving as a space of visibility, advocacy, celebration, and resilience for nearly five decades. We are profoundly grateful to every volunteer, sponsor, artist, activist, and community member who has supported Tucson Pride throughout its history."
At its annual reveal party, the Capital Pride Alliance unveiled the theme for 2026 Capital Pride: "Exist. Resist. Have the Audacity!"
The theme is rooted in what the organization calls "the undeniable truth that our existence is not up for debate," and serves as a call for the community to "live loudly and proudly, stand firm against injustice and erasure, and embody the collective strength that has always defined the LGBTQ+ community."
"This year's theme is both a declaration and a demand," said Ryan Bos, CEO and president of the Capital Pride Alliance, in a statement. "'Exist. Resist. Have the Audacity!' reflects the resilience of our community and our responsibility to protect the progress we've made. As we look toward our nation's 250th anniversary, we affirm that LGBTQ+ people have always been and always will be a part of the United States' history, and we will continue shaping its future with strength and resolve."
GLAAD has released new data showing that 1,042 anti-LGBTQ incidents were reported across 47 states and the District of Columbia in 2025 -- a 5% increase over the previous year, according to the organization’s ALERT Desk Anti-LGBTQ Extremism Reporting Tracker.
Anti-LGBTQ incidents were defined as "an act of harassment, threat(s), vandalism, and/or assault against an individual, group, and/or organization," with explicit evidence of anti-LGBTQ bias as a motivating factor.
The incidents included 128 acts of hateful vandalism, 76 violent assaults, 22 threats of mass violence, and 15 arson attempts.
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