Are the students who objected to Ben Carson’s position on gay marriage aware that Obama shared the exact same position until recently?

Would they object to Obama giving their commencement address?

Andrea K. Walker of the Baltimore Sun reports.

Ben Carson steps down as Hopkins commencement speaker

Neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson stepped down Wednesday as commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine after complaints from students about controversial comments concerning same-sex marriage.

The withdrawal came less than a week after medical school Dean Paul B. Rothman chastised Carson for his comments and met with graduating students concerned that the famed physician was an inappropriate commencement speaker.

Carson sent Rothman a letter saying that he didn’t want to “distract from the celebratory nature of the day.”

“Given all the national media surrounding my statements as to my belief in traditional marriage, I believe it would be in the best interest of the students for me to voluntarily withdraw as your commencement speaker this year,” he wrote in the letter to Rothman, which the dean shared with the Hopkins community.

Neither Rothman nor Carson was available for comment Wednesday night.

“This was purely Dr. Carson’s decision,” said Hopkins spokeswoman Kim Hoppe in an email, adding that the university did not ask him to give up the speaking engagement.

As Carson, 61, prepares to retire from medicine in June, he has become more outspoken about his political and social views. He criticized President Barack Obama‘s health care reform law at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, which made him a darling of conservatives.

But his comments about same-sex marriage during a recent appearance on Fox News caused the latest backlash, bringing complaints from Hopkins faculty and students.