As Sen. Ted Cruz began emerging as the favorite of establishment Republicans looking to stop Donald Trump from winning the party’s presidential nomination, there was a brief period in which Cruz unconvincingly attempted to portray himself as more mainstream than he actually is. The maneuvering didn’t last long, as Cruz is now attacking Trump from the right for not being anti-LGBT enough.
Cruz released an online ad along with a blistering statement yesterday attacking the GOP presidential frontrunner for criticizing a radical new anti-LGBT law in North Carolina, which he claimed would allow “grown men” to “use little girls’ public restrooms”:
“Donald Trump is no different from politically correct leftist elites. Today, he joined them in calling for grown men to be allowed to use little girls’ public restrooms. As the dad of young daughters, I dread what this will mean for our daughters – and for our sisters and our wives. It is a reckless policy that will endanger our loved ones.
“Yet Donald stands up for this irresponsible policy while at the same time caving in on defending individual freedoms and religious liberty. He has succumbed to the Left’s agenda, which is to force Americans to leave God out of public life while paying lip service to false tolerance.
“This is not real tolerance. The Left wants to force its belief system onto Americans across the country and silence people of faith in the public square. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump is all too eager to join them. This simply confirms that the same man who favored partial-birth abortion and still supports public funding for Planned Parenthood will sacrifice principle on the altar of political correctness. Trump will not defeat political correctness. Today he bowed to it.”
Along with being patently bigoted, the allegation that transgender people and others are using nondiscrimination laws to assault and molest children is without factual basis.
Indeed, Cruz has made false and derogatory claims against the LGBT community throughout his political career and his presidential campaign.
Back in 2014, Cruz said that there was “a real risk” that pastors would soon be hauled off to jail and face hate crime charges if they opposed same-sex marriage or declined to officiate at a gay couple’s wedding. The previous year, he had claimed that the prosecution of pastors was “the next step” in the marriage equality movement.
Before the Supreme Court’s landmark marriage equality ruling, Cruz argued that the legal challenges to gay marriage bans were not only “heartbreaking” but also a “real threat” to “our liberties.” Earlier this year, he alleged that the “disastrous” and “fundamentally illegitimate” ruling has led to the “persecution” of Christians. He told one conservative radio host in 2014 that anti-gay civil disobedience may be necessary in the face of what he recently described as LGBT advocates’ “jihad” against “people of faith who respect the biblical teaching that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.”
Following the Obergefell ruling, Cruz told a group of radical anti-gay activists that in a Cruz administration, “we will not use the federal government to enforce this lawless decision that is a usurpation of the authority of we the people in this country.”
Cruz told the same group that he also opposes advances in LGBT rights in the military, criticizing President Obama for being “more interested in promoting homosexuality in the military than he is in defeating our enemy” and making the military “promote transgendered [sic] soldiers.” “The role of the military is not to be some left-wing social experiment,” he continued, pledging that as president he would “stop the shameless politicizing of our military to push a left-wing agenda that is contrary to the values and contrary to who we are as an American people and a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values.”
Cruz even signed a National Organization for Marriage pledge in which he vowed not only to overturn Obergefell but also to “prevent the promotion of a redefined version of marriage in public schools and other government entities,” sign a bill legalizing anti-gay discrimination and order the Justice Department to investigate the supposed persecution of gay rights opponents.
The group later endorsed Cruz, which shouldn’t be surprising since he surrounds himself with all sorts of anti-gay extremists, and at one point courted the support of a preacher who believes in the death penalty for homosexuality.
Endorsers embraced by Cruz’s campaign, as we’ve reported in the past, “have included North Carolina activists who have referred to gay people as Satan’s minions; a North Carolina pastor who has likened gay people to ‘maggots’ and linked them to Ebola; an Oklahoma preacher who warns that homosexuality is part of a demonic communist conspiracy to bring down America; a Virginia radio host who has blamed gays for everything from terrorism to train derailments; and a Virginia lawmaker who has sponsored an assortment of bizarre anti-gay bills.”
Two of Cruz’s most vocal endorsers, Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, have defended a Ugandan measure that would have punished gay people with death or lengthy prison terms. He has repeatedly boasted of the endorsement he received from “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson, who told a Cruz rally that Americans should “rid the earth” of gay marriage advocates.
With a record like this, Cruz’s disparaging attack on transgender people should leave no one surprised.