At an event in Manhattan Wednesday night hosted by a pair of high-profile gay hoteliers, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that he would have no problem if one of his daughters said she was gay.
The comment, by Cruz and reported by The New York Times on Thursday, is something of a shift for the staunchly-conservative Republican presidential candidate who has said he considers marriage as between a man and a woman and “ordained by god.”
Cruz made the comment at the Central Park South penthouse of Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, business partners who had once been a couple.
“Ted Cruz said ‘If one of my daughters was gay, I would love them just as much,'” Reisner said of Cruz’s comments in front of the group of about a dozen. According to Reisner, Cruz also said that he thought gay marriage should be a decision made at the state level.
Cruz’s gay-friendly remarks were a change in tone from his recent criticisms of those who opposed a recent anti-gay bill in Indiana. That bill would have allowed businesses to refuse service to same-sex individuals based on the owners’ religious preferences. Cruz said a “jihad” had been waged in Indiana and in Arkansas, over a similar bill, against “people of faith who respect the biblical teaching is the union of one man and one woman.”
Cruz’s comments throughout the evening were mostly on foreign policy. He did not go into depth about his views on same-sex marriage. Cruz’s staff stressed on Thursday that he still opposes same-sex marriage.
According to another attendee, Kalman Sporn, Cruz also called Peter Thiel, a deep-pocketed openly gay investor, a close friend. Sporn serves as an adviser on Cruz’s Middle East team, according to the Times.
