Seven extreme homophobes who will be very upset Ted Cruz won’t be President
Republican Senator Ted Cruz has officially dropped out of the Presidential race, conceding after heavy defeats at the hands of Donald Trump.
A militant opponent of LGBT rights, Senator Cruz courted the far-right anti-gay lobby more aggressively than any other candidate.
He strongly backed new anti-LGBT ‘religious freedom’ laws to allow religious people to discriminate against married gay couples – and also supports a Constitutional amendment to void same-sex marriage entirely.
Cruz claimed transgender people are a threat to his daughters and branded actress Ellen Page a “liberal fascist” when she confronted his stance.
Here’s just some of the colourful characters who will be very upset that President Ted has been Defea-Ted.
1. Linda Harvey (Mission: America)
Ted Cruz had “proudly” announced Linda Harvey – one of the most notorious anti-LGBT activists in America – would be supporting his campaign.
Harvey claimed previously that people only become gay because of “child molestation” or due to “other traumatic childhood experiences in childhood to neglectful, disordered or abusive parents.”
In her long history of disturbing and often extremist far-right rhetoric, the host has repeatedly linked homosexuality with paedophilia, claimed equal marriage will cause the apocalypse, denied that homophobic violence exists, claimed homeless gay youths only have themselves to blame, and accused Katy Perry of flirting with Satanism.
2. Mark Creech (Christian Action League of North Carolina)
Before becoming a strong advocate of Ted Cruz, Creech claimed that equal marriage would “gang rape” society.
Recalling Sodom and Gomorrah, he claimed: “No longer were their shameful sins simply tolerated by a permissive society, but it had gone much further than that. Now these people were an open, aggressive and insistent force, in a city where none dare interfere.
“Their behaviour was not looked upon as criminal, but as constitutional. Yet as they pushed upon Lot’s door to knock it down, their actions were nothing less than an attempted gang rape. Today, it is the same.
“I suggest the defying of marriage laws by gays and lesbians in California, New York, Illinois, New Mexico, and Oregon — the foisting of the issue of gay marriage on the country by judicial activists sympathetic with the gay agenda — is an attempted gang rape of our culture.
“It is an attempt to sodomize our society.”
3. Kevin Swanson
Cruz spent most of his campaign ducking questions about his relationship with Swanson, after they shared the stage and embraced at a November rally.
At the event Swanson gave a speech introducing Cruz, in which he said: “Yes, Leviticus calls for the death penalty for homosexuals! Yes, the Apostle Paul does say that homosexuals are worthy of death! His words, not mine, and [screaming] I AM NOT ASHAMED! I am not ashamed of the truth of the word of God!”
Cruz then took part in a Q&A with Swanson before giving a keynote speech. He did not reference Swanson’s comments at any point, nor signal any sort of disapproval for anything said.
Swanson also claimed at the event that parents should drown children who want to read Harry Potter.
But Cruz’s spokesperson told reporters that the calls for the execution of gay people were “not explicit” enough for his campaign to condemn.
Cruz eventually admitted attending the event was a mistake. Sorry Kev’.
4. Phil Robertson (Duck Dynasty)
A regular fixture at Cruz rallies was reality star Phil Robertson – known for his vitriolic homophobic rants.
Robertson was suspended from the A&E reality show for less than two weeks in 2013, when he ranted about men who prefer “a man’s anus” over a vagina.
The TV star, who claims that sexually transmitted infections are God’s punishment for gays, recorded an ad backing Cruz for President as well as appearing at many events.
In it, he claims: “My qualification for President of the United States are rather narrow. Is he or she Godly? Does he or she love us? Can he or she do the job? And finally, would they kill a duck and put him in a pot and make him a good duck gumbo.”
Speaking to To Cruz, he adds: “You’re one of us, my man, that’s why we’re voting for you.”
5. Brian Brown (NOM)
Cruz had previously bragged about his endorsements from leading anti-LGBT groups – including Brian Brown of the National Organisation for Marriage.
He told an evangelical radio host: “I believe that [Supreme Court equal marriage] decision was fundamentally illegitimate, it was lawless, it was unconstitutional and it will not stand.
“It’s why the National Organization on Marriage [sic] has endorsed me on this campaign and said it cannot support Donald Trump or Marco Rubio.
Brown recently suggested gay sex should still be a crime while mourning late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In the email seen by PinkNews, Brown referred not just to rulings on same-sex marriage, but a number of cases relating to sodomy laws across the US – expressing clear support for Scalia’s dissents against decisions to strike down sodomy laws.
6. Tony Perkins (Family Research Council)
Senator Cruz was also cushy with Mr Perkins, noting that his position against same-sex marriage was “the reason is why Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has endorsed me in this campaign”.
The notorious Christian activist has made a number of extremely disturbing claims about gay people in the past, insisting that gay people will attempt a ‘Christian Holocaust’.
He was slammed by Jewish groups after claiming that Christians are being sent to “camps”, and that soon gays are “going to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians”
Perkins compared gays to paedophiles, saying: “While activists like to claim that paedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. It is a homosexual problem.”
He also branded the ‘It Gets Better’ anti-bullying campaign “disgusting”, saying: “It’s part of a concerted effort to recruit [kids] into that lifestyle.”
Ahead of the Supreme Court court ruling in favour of equal marriage, Perkins threatened a “revolution” in the United States over the issue.
7. Mike Bickle
Cruz touted an endorsement by ‘International House of Prayer’ pastor Mike Bickle, writing: “I am grateful for Mike’s dedication to call a generation of young people to prayer and spiritual commitment. Heidi and I are grateful to have his prayers and support.”
Bickle claimed who claims God “raised up” Adolf Hitler to hunt non-believers, and who claims gays will cause the apocalypse.
He described equal marriage as “a unique signal of the End Times and the forbidding of marriage”
He also claimed schools will “promote… all the sexual options” because of gay equality, such as “the transgender, the boy with boy, the girl with girl, the threesomes, the fivesomes … the young boy with the old man, the paedophiles, all of this will end up being presented as normative, acceptable, healthy sexual patterns”.
