After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he would support Texas county clerks’ ability to deny marriage licenses to gay couples on religious grounds, “Today Show” co-host Savannah Guthrie pressed the presidential candidate on the difference between gay marriage and interracial marriage.
“If a state clerk refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple, would you agree with that too?” she asked Cruz on Monday morning, noting that people who once objected to interracial marriage used religion to support their beliefs.
“There’s no religious backing for that,” Cruz responded.
Guthrie then asked Cruz whether interracial marriage should be a state issue, even though the Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriage bans are unconstitutional.
“Of course not,’ Cruz answered. “We fought a bloody civil war over the original sin of our country, that was slavery. Slavery was grotesque and immoral and some 600,000 Americans lost their lives, spilled their blood on American soil to expunge it.”
He said that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments honored “the promise of the Constitution.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Sunday told the state’s county clerks that they can refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples if they object to same-sex marriage for religious reasons.
Watch the interview via NBC:
H/t Mediaite
The religious backing of racism and bans on interracial marriage were well established. Cruz really should try reading up on his history, but that would require actually having to deal with reality.
That was a grilling? Did she ask him what the Civil War had to do with interracial marriage? I think he is still tartare.
Hate is one thing. Trying to hide behind Jesus to get away with it is just pathetic.
They’re just having fun with him now—
This is so insincere. Yes, we fought that bloody civil war but it was 100 years later that interracial marriage was illegal in many states and people like you and Harry Truman said that was because of religious reason.
Just like people like you are opposing same sex marriage because of religious reasons.
And by the way, we fought a bloody civil war that the south lost yet they still get to fly that flag, don’t they?