If you're looking for someone to defend queer rights, Ted Cruz is not your man.
The Republican presidential hopeful dropped by "Good Morning America" for a Town Hall on Monday and faced a question from Todd Calogne, a gay "lifelong Republican" from New York City, who wanted to know what Cruz would do to protect him and his husband from the "religious freedom"-inspired institutional discrimination that has cropped up across the country in recent months.
Instead of doing something useful like, you know, actually answering Calogne's question, Cruz offered a spirited defense of religious freedom laws, ending his rant by noting, "I have spent my entire adult life fighting to defend religious liberty, fighting to defend the freedom of every one of us to seek out and worship God, and I think keeping government out of the way of your lives protects the freedom of every one of us."
"Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts, who is also gay and wasn't having any of it from Cruz, pushed the politician to refocus on the issue of queer rights. “But when you talk about freedom, what he referred to with his husband a lot of people would say, doesn’t everybody have the freedom to be treated equally, don’t we all have the freedom to be equal?” she asked.
Cruz, still apparently unclear that no one was asking him his thoughts on religious freedom, responded, "Of course we do and the First Amendment protects everyone equally — it protects our faith. It protects the freedom of all of us…”
Finally, George Stephanopoulos, making one last desperate attempt to actually get Calogne's question answered, asked, "You support a constitutional amendment that would have the effect of overturning the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage, so, what would that mean for couples like Todd and his husband who already are married?”
We'll let you watch the clip above to find out Cruz's answer but spoiler alert: it ain't good.
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