Campaigning in Iowa for the GOP presidential nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz “reiterated his vow to press for a constitutional amendment” empowering states “to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” and warned that if the U.S. Supreme Court “does legalize gay marriage nationwide, … he would prod Congress to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over the issue,” the Dallas Morning News reported last week.
Cruz believes “that a Supreme Court ruling to legalize gay marriage nationwide would be ‘fundamentally illegitimate.'” How is this not imposing his own religious beliefs on every American, in disregard of our rights to believe differently from him, and in clear violation of the constitutional rights of gay people to equality under the law?
It’s not actually that big a deal, though, because while anyone can run for president and advocate anything he likes, Cruz has no realistic chance of being nominated or elected. And, as only 1 of 100 Senators, he can’t dictate the nation’s legislative agenda and certainly doesn’t have the power by himself to enact constitutional amendments or strip federal courts of their power to protect citizens from demagogues like him. That being the case, he’s just a blowhard homophobe sounding off, which he has a right to do — and we have a right to dismiss him as the crank he is.