Former President Jimmy Carter says the Bible is to blame for women's making less money than men in the workplace.
In an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Carter rattled off some statistics on the issue of unequal pay between the two genders.
"In the United States for the same exact work for a full-time employee, women get 23 percent less pay than men,"
Carter said. "And in the Fortune 500, only 21 of those leaders among the 500 are women, and in that high level they get 42 percent less pay" than men.
Editor's Note: Ben Carson in 2016? See His Vision.
Carter spent three years researching the link between religion and the abuse of young girls and women across the world for his new book,
"A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power," which will be available on Tuesday. His research concluded there is a link between religion and how females are treated.
"That is really derived, I would say, indirectly from the fact that religious leaders say that women are inferior in the eyes of God, which is a false interpretation of the Holy Scriptures."
In a longer version of the interview that does not contain the segment about gender inequality in the workplace, Carter expanded on the idea that women are mistreated because of religion.
"When [men] see the Pope and the Southern Baptist Convention and others say that women can't serve as priests equally with men, they say, 'Well, I'll treat my wife the way I want to because she's inferior to me,'"
Carter said.
Carter and his wife cut ties with the Southern Baptist Convention 14 years ago when they determined that the church's views on women were too far apart from theirs.
In the proposal for his book, Carter called the treatment of women a "human rights" issue.
"I am convinced that discrimination against women and girls is one of the world's most serious, all-pervasive and largely ignored violations of basic human rights," Carter wrote, as reported by the
New York Times.
"It is disturbing to realize that women are treated most equally in some countries that are atheistic or where governments are strictly separated from religion," he said.
Editor's Note: Ben Carson in 2016? See His Vision.
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