Rafael Cruz, a Christian celebrity and
the father of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, has praised Alabama Supreme
Court Chief Justice Roy S. Moore's defiance of a federal judge's
ruling striking down the state's ban as unconstitutional.
Appearing on Eagle Forum Live, the
elder Cruz praised Moore for ordering probate judges to ignore the
ruling and not issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
“Something very exciting that has
happened is what happened in Alabama with Justice Roy Moore,” Cruz
said. “And so what [he and the Alabama Supreme Court] are
doing is asserting that the state has supremacy and basically all of
these laws were for the state to make those decisions, not the
federal court. The federal court is overreaching and it is actually
legislating from the bench, contrary to the opinion of the majority
of the American people.”
Cruz warned that a Supreme Court ruling
striking down such bans as unconstitutional would lead to pastors
being forced to marry gay and lesbian couples, something which has
yet to occur in any of the dozens of states where gay couples can
marry.
“What is going to come next, and this
is part of the danger of what may happen out of the Supreme Court in
June, is that if marriage of anybody-with-anybody becomes a civil
rights issue, then they are going to come to churches and force
pastors to violate their religious convictions. And so it is going
to come to America to where a pastor is going to be faced with a
decision: do you obey a law that is not only unjust but violates your
core principles, or do you obey God and face prison?”
“This is the dilemma that America's
pastors are going to be facing if this issue is labeled a civil
rights issue,” he added. “It goes way beyond marriage to
actually violate the religious freedom of people of faith.”
Last week, Senator Cruz became the
first official candidate for president in the 2016 election.