Progressives Smear Dr. Benjamin Carson on Polygamy Comments Even Though Justice Sotomayor Raised Exact Same Concerns

This truly evil development just proves how threatening Dr. Ben Carson is to the radical left's morally bankrupt program of statist dependency.

It turns out that progressives are demanding that Dr. Carson withdraw from a scheduled commencement speech at John Hopkins University, the same university where Dr. Carson works as director of pediatric neurosurgery. He's even offered to withdraw on his own, as a goodwill gesture to tamp down the controversy. It's too bad, too. Dr. Carson needs to understand that this is just the beginning of a campaign to utterly destroy him just as any other conservative black man who's dared escape the progressive Democrat plantation. The Lonely Conservative reports, "The Left Manufactures the Dr. Ben Carson Coke Can Pubic Hair Moment."

I called out David Weigel for this faux controversy on Twitter yesterday:

@ampowerblog No, Sotomayor wasn't saying she agreed with the point.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) March 28, 2013

Here's the article I reference at the tweet, "'Be They Gays, Be They NAMBLA, Be They People Who Believe in Bestiality ...'." I sent Weigel two other tweets, but got no response:

@daveweigel POLYGAMY VS. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE:  Justice Sotomayor asked an interesting question during the Supreme… pjmedia.com/instapundit/16…
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 29, 2013

.@daveweigel You're stretching it, I think. That @instapundit link confirms my point.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 29, 2013

Weigel defends his smear on Dr. Carson with the weaselly dodge, "Sotomayor wasn't saying she agreed with the point."

Wrong. It's clear that Justice Sotomayor was making the exact same point as Dr. Carson. Indeed, here are verbatim comments from the oral arguments, directed at Theodore Olson:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson, the bottom line that you're being asked -- and -- and it is one that I'm interested in the answer: If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what State restrictions could ever exist? Meaning, what State restrictions with respect to the number of people, with respect to -- that could get married -- the incest laws, the mother and child, assuming that they are the age -- I can -- I can accept that the State has probably an overbearing interest on -- on protecting a child until they're of age to marry, but what's left?

She is clearly not disagreeing with polygamy in the sense that Weigel claims. She's throwing that out there in the exact same way the Dr. Carson does, to the effect that polygamy, etc., is something that's logically implicated by allowing same-sex marriage, so where does the state's interest in prohibiting this behavior begin or end? Indeed, here's the Salt Lake Tribune's report on the controversy, "Justice brings up polygamy in Prop 8 gay marriage case." The report notes that Olson responded to Sotomayor as faced with a legitimate concern. And as Elizabeth Price Foley noted at Instapundit, "Ted Olson’s answer was not entirely satisfactory, suggesting that a ban on polygamy or incest would be a ban on “conduct,” not one based on “status”." No, it wasn't satisfactory because he's dodging the question and avoiding the problem.

Now, in an update, Weigel has changed his tune a bit, conceding that Sotoymayor raised the exact same issue as Dr. Carson, but claiming that she and Olson were "reasoning this out," or whatever. See: "Ben Carson vs. Sonia Sotomayor, Round Zero."

Fact: Both Dr. Carson and Justice Sotomayor raised the exact same worries over legalizing homosexual marriage. But the left's response --- and that of dishonest David Weigel --- has been to smear Dr. Carson but give Justice Sotomayor a pass. This is the kind of morally reprehensible politics that's always played by progressives, and unfortunately, Dr. Carson is getting hammered.

And here's more of the left's lies from the Soros-backed Obama shills at Media Matters, "Fox's Kelly Attempts to Link Justice Sotomayor and Ben Carson's Anti-Gay Comments." The writer, Lara Swartz, posts at least 1,000 words to desperately claim that "Seen in the context of a nearly two-hour oral argument with a long trial record and dozens of amicus briefs, it is unreasonable to suggest that Justice Sotomayor's question demonstrates that she agrees with Carson." Nope. No go. She raised the exact same concern regardless of the background, the context of the oral arguments, or record of the amicus briefs. Justice Sotomayor made the exact same point. The progressives are lying about what went down. Weigel backtracked from his initial dodge in his later blog posts, but the left has got its meme and they're hammering it home Alinsky style. It may be too late for the commencement speech, but Dr. Carson needs to punch back twice as hard, and now.