In a mind-bending display of hypocrisy, Sen. Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor Thursday to Ted-splain the most important thing to focus on following Orlando.
“There are great many Democrats who are fond of calling themselves champions of the LGBT community,” Cruz said. “I would suggest there is no more important issue to champion in that regard than protecting Americans from murder by a vicious ideology that systematically murders homosexuals, that throws them off buildings, that buries them under rocks.”
Yeah, first off, we're not taking marching orders from someone who still refers to us "homosexuals." Second, Cruz is a two-faced hypocrite who has been a chief promoter of homophobia and animus toward LGBT individuals. Just a few months ago, Cruz went to Des Moines, Iowa, to share the stage with a virulently anti-LGBT pastor. As Mike Signorile reported:
Pastor Kevin Swanson has said in the past that Christians should attend gay weddings and hold up signs telling the newly married gay and lesbian couples that they “should be put to death.” He was an advocate of Uganda’s infamous “Kill the Gays” bill, which he saw as a model.
At the confab over the weekend, where he introduced Huckabee, Jindal and Cruz to the audience — and where Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, an anti-gay Tea Party crusader, was a star speaker — he reiterated his death penalty call, adding that homosexuals should first be given some time to repent before the executions begin.
On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, using extensive clips of video of the speech that had been posted by the indispensable Right Wing Watch, covered the conference in depth, and was rightly horrified that it even took place and that presidential candidates were there.
“This is a political event. This is a Republican presidential candidates’ event,” Maddow said. “It really was a ‘kill-the-gays’ call to arms. This was a conference about the necessity of the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuality.”
We're still waiting for Ted Cruz to disavow Kevin Swanson's "vicious ideology." Cruz (and the Republican Party more broadly) are in overdrive to blame Orlando on extremism. Just take a look in the mirror, folks—that vicious ideology lives and breathes right here at home.