Out actress Ellen Page confronted GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, over LGBT rights on Friday at the Iowa State Fair.

“People in the LGBT community are worried, just 'cause in the past, during segregation era or when women were tying to get the right to vote, religious liberty was often used to defend and justify that discrimination. … So, I was wondering if you could speak to that?” Page, wearing a hat and sunglasses, asked Cruz as he cooked pork chops over a grill.

Cruz denied the allegation, saying that it was “leaders in the church who played a critical role” in defeating Jim Crow laws.

“But a lot of religious people also used the Bible to defend segregation,” Page responded.

“What about the question about LGBT people being fired for being gay [or] trans?” Page asked.

“Well, what we're seeing right now, we're seeing Bible-believing Christians being persecuted for living according to their faith,” Cruz said.

“You're discriminating against LGBT people,” the 28-year-old Page said. “Well, would you use that argument in segregation?”

“Now, I'm happy to answer your question, but not to have a back-and-forth debate,” said Cruz, who previously has said that his campaign would be based on his opposition to marriage equality and Obamacare.

Cruz later told ABC News that he did not recognize Page, who is in Iowa working on a project for VICE Media.

At a rally held Friday night in Des Moines, Cruz lauded as “heroes” a former Air Force sergeant who claims he was let go because of his religious views against gays, a former Atlanta fire chief who was fired after he self-published a book in which he called gays “unclean” and an Iowa couple who refused to service a gay couple.

Cruz said that their stories were examples of “government persecution.”