Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is seeking
the Republican nomination for president, said Friday that out actress
Ellen Page attacked him with accusations of hating gays while
grilling pork chops at the Iowa State Fair.
Page confronted Cruz about his
opposition to LGBT rights.
Wearing a hat and sunglasses, Page
asked Cruz: “People in the LGBT community are worried, just 'cause
in the past, during segregation era or when women were trying 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?”
Cruz denied the allegation, saying that
it was “leaders in the church who played a critical role” in
defeating Jim Crow laws. When pressed by Page – “Would you use
that argument in segregation” – Cruz said that he was not
interested in having a “back-and-forth debate.”
At the Presidential Family Forum in Des
Moines, Iowa on Friday, Cruz said that Page had come after him with
the “standard attack of the Left” of “why do Republicans hate
gay people?”
“Scripture commands us to love
everybody,” Cruz said. “But at the same time I'm proud to defend
both the definition of marriage, the union of one man and one woman
that was ordained by God, and the religious liberty of those who
believe in a Biblical definition of marriage not being persecuted by
their government.”
“When I asked Ms. Page, you want to
talk about protecting discrimination, tell me why are you not
distressed about the fact that Iran and ISIS are murdering
homosexuals right now? Why are you not asking President Obama, why
are you sending $100 billion to Ayatollah Khomeini, who murders
homosexuals. You wanna talk about an assault on gay rights, how
about not murdering the homosexuals,” Cruz added.
Cruz, however, has dodged questions
about the controversy surrounding a “kill-the-gays” conference he
attended earlier this month. The National Religious Liberties
Conference was organized by pastor Kevin Swanson, a Colorado-based
Christian conservative who has previously called for the death
penalty for homosexuality. Swanson told attendees that he would
protest a gay couple's wedding by smearing cow dung over his body and
reiterated his call for the government to execute unrepentant gays in
the future.
(Related: Ted
Cruz, Mike Huckabee dismiss controversy surrounding “kill the gays”
conference.)
In comments to the Daily Beast,
Page discussed confronting Cruz, saying that he and GOP rival Mike
Huckabee seem “homophobic.”
“They don't answer the question.
They say you're cutting them off when you try to ask the same
question again because you're not answering it, because the reality
is that they might be homophobic,” Page said.
(Related: Ellen
Page on Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee: They seem homophobic.)
Other candidates who appeared at the
forum included Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Governor
Mike Huckabee, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, former Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum, Doctor Ben Carson and Kentucky Senator Rand
Paul.
Rubio told those attending that
marriage equality is not about discrimination.
(Related: Marco
Rubio: Gay marriage is not about discrimination.)