Ted Cruz Discusses Gay Marriage, LGBT Laws

all right we have tadka loin here he owns a pizza shop in New York City he's undecided but leaning towards Donald Trump so what's your question for the senator hi I'm a lifelong Republican and I've been married to my husband for two years now and my question is I've noticed a lot of religious freedom laws and somewhat institutionalized discrimination laws happening around the country what would you as president do to protect me and my husband from that institutionalized discrimination well listen when it comes to religious liberty religious liberty is something that protects every one of us it is the very first amendment very first phrase protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and and religious liberty it applies to Christians it applies to Jews it applies to Muslims that applies to atheists and and all of us we want to live in a world where we don't have the government dictating our beliefs dictating how we live we have a right to live according to our faith according to our conscience and that freedom ultimately protects each and every one of us and and we shouldn't have the right to force others to knuckle under and give up their faith and give up their belief and and for me I mean 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 over every one of us a lot of people would say doesn't everybody have the freedom to be treated equally though we all have the freedom to to be equal yeah of course we do but and the First Amendment protects everyone equally it protects our faith it protects the faith of an Orthodox Jew to follow his or her faith without the government getting in the way and and and regulating kosher delis and restricting what can be served at receiver's protects the freedom of all of us you know you supported a constitutional amendment that would have the effect of overturning the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage so what would that mean for a couples like Todd and his husband who already are married well listen I'm a constitutionalist and and under the Constitution marriage is a question for the states that has been the case from the very big of this country that it's been up to the states and so if someone wants to change the marriage laws I don't think it should be five unelected lawyers down in Washington dictating that and even if you happen to agree with that particular decision why would you want to hand over every important public policy issue to five unelected lawyers who aren't accountable to you who don't work for you instead if you want to change the marriage laws convince your fellow citizens to change the laws and by the way Amanda that we've got 50 states that the laws in one state may be different than another state and we would expect that we would expect the people of New York to adopt different laws perhaps in the people of California or Texas or Florida and that's the great thing about a big diverse country is that we can have different laws that respect different values

Channel: ABC News

Views: 111,866

Keywords: ted cruz gma, ted cruz town hall, ted cruz gay marriage, ted cruz LGBT, Politics, US politics, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Bill Clinton, Presidential campaign, president 2016, Trump 2016, Mexico Wall, Muslims, Immigration, Sanders 2016, Clinton 2016, Mitt Romney, trump rally violence, trump protest, protests, Caucus, Melania Trump, Heidi Cruz, New York, New York Primary

Id: EZ-80bpq3Y0

Length: 3min 1sec (181 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 18 2016