Ted Cruz made an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America in a town hall setting where he took questions from New York voters.
One courageous man stood up to ask the candidate about his views on marriage equality. Todd Calogne is a New York City pizza shop owner, a gay married man, and a registered Republican. He wanted to know how a future President Cruz would protect the rights of gay people like him and his husband in light of all of the so-called “religious freedom” laws around the nation. Laws like those in Mississippi that makes it OK for a baker to deny a cake to Calogne or his husband because they are gay.
Cruz tried to answer, but got himself stuck to the twisted logic of the religious right as he did:
“Religious liberty, it applies to Jews, it applies to Christians, it applies to Muslims, it applies to atheists,” Cruz said. “And all of us, we want to live in a world where we don’t have the government dictating our beliefs, dictating how we live. We have a right to live according to our faith, according to our conscience.”
“And we shouldn’t have a right to force others to give up their faith and give up their belief. And I think that keeping government out of the way of your lives protects the freedom of every one of us.”
While the pizza shop owner let the answer ride, Cruz was more aggressively pushed by ABC host Robin Roberts, who came out as lesbian several years ago, who asked:
“A lot of people would say, doesn’t everyone have the freedom to be treated equally?”
“Of course we do,” answered Cruz.
Apparently he does not consider it equality of treatment for gay men and women to be able to buy a cake, or hire a photographer. Or buy a pizza.
Cruz did not answer Todd’s question, of course. He made no attempt to offer any protection to the small business owner and his legal spouse. He fell back on the overused and frankly stupid argument that forcing a businessman to bake a cake for a gay person would be violating the “religious” rights of that person.
Why am I not surprised?
Featured image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr. Available through a Creative Commons License 2.0.
