Ted Cruz used an awful lot of words when discussing “religious liberty” during a Good Morning America town hall Monday morning, but it’s what he didn’t say in his answer to a gay Republican’s question that stood out.
Todd Calogne, a pizza parlor owner in New York City, began his question by telling the Republican presidential candidate that he’s a “lifelong Republican” who has been married to his husband for two years. “I’ve noticed a lot of ‘religious freedom’ laws and somewhat institutionalized discrimination laws happening around the country,” he said, likely referring to anti-LGBT laws passed in North Carolina and Mississippi and proposed in many other states. “What would you as President do to protect me and my husband from that institutionalized discrimination?”
Cruz refused to actually entertain that question — or even humor its premise — a total of three times after anchors Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos tried to push him further. Instead, he repeatedly insisted that “religious liberty” simply protects everybody. “That freedom ultimately protects each and every one of us,” he claimed. “We shouldn’t have the right to force others to knuckle under and give up their faith, give up their belief. For me, I have spent my entire adult life fighting to defend religious liberty, fighting to defend the freedom of every one of us to seek out and worship God, and I think keeping government out of the way of your lives protects the freedom of every one of us.”
Roberts was the first to try to get more out of him. “But when you talk about freedom — what he referred to with his husband — a lot of people would say, doesn’t everybody have the freedom to be treated equally, don’t we all have the freedom to be equal?”
Cruz again avoided any acknowledgment that same-sex couples like the questioner could experience discrimination under these laws. Instead, he suggested it simply protects an Orthodox Jew from the government mandating what a Kosher deli can serve, an analogy that is purely hypothetical — no deli has ever been forced to serve anything, and why would it? — and irrelevant to the question. It’s never been an issue of what any business sells on its menu, but merely a question of to whom it is willing to sell those items.
Stephanopoulos then called out Cruz for supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which would overturn the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. “What would that mean for couples like Todd and his husband who already are married?”
A third time, Cruz avoided any concern for Calogne or his family. Instead, he reiterated his belief that same-sex couples should still have to ask permission from their neighbors for the right to marry. “Marriage is a question for the states,” he said, decrying the Supreme Court’s intervention. “If you want to change the marriage laws, convince your fellow citizens to change the laws.” He went on to celebrate the idea that different states could have “different laws that respect different values.”
ABC News VideoEdit descriptionabcnews.go.comSo not only did Cruz ignore the kinds of discrimination Calogne was asking about, he actually called for another kind of discrimination against him.
This is unsurprising from Cruz, who has some of the most socially conservative views of any Republican presidential candidate — past or present. Last month, his campaign’s Religious Liberty Advisory Council released a 15-point platform for preserving “religious liberty.” Given every single member of the council was Christian, the platform unsurprisingly privileged conservative Christian beliefs about LGBT issues and women over any other beliefs.
Cruz already has a storied record of supporting discrimination against LGBT people, including opposition to the Equality Act, support for the discriminatory First Amendment Defense Act, and opposition to allowing transgender people serve in the military.