Ted Cruz’s father and adviser Rafael Cruz, a prominent right-wing activist in his own right, appeared on “Eagle Forum Live” this weekend with Phyllis Schlalfy, where he called on state leaders to follow Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s lead in flouting federal court decisions which strike down bans on same-sex marriage.
“Something very exciting that has happened is what happened in Alabama with Justice Roy Moore,” Cruz said, hailing a state supreme court ruling which found that “the courts of Alabama do not have to obey the opinion of a federal judge and as a matter of fact, Justice Roy Moore, ordered the civil courts in Alabama not to issue marriage licenses for homosexual couples. And so what they 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 added that states with marriage equality will begin forcing pastors to marry same-sex couples under penalty of prison, something that has never taken place in any of the dozens of states where same-sex marriage is legal.
“We need to realize that the attack on marriage is more than just an attack on marriage, it actually goes to the heart of religious freedom,” Cruz said. “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. It goes way beyond marriage to actually violate the religious freedom of people of faith,” he continued.
Later in the program, Cruz warned that “we are on the brink of the destruction of this country” and said that President Obama is acting “like an emperor more than a president,” adding: “If we have eight more years of this type of government, this country will be destroyed.”
When a caller, Dan, called in to say that the American people should begin “killing judges” over the fear that “judges will order pastors to marry homosexuals,” Schlafly said that she is “not ready to kill anybody.”
Instead, Schlafly said that people should instead “use all the ways that are available to us in this free system.” Cruz agreed with Schlafly, arguing that elected officials are selected by “a small minority of Americans” and that people who believe in “biblical values” must turn out en masse to the polls.
