Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Ted Cruz: Anti-Gay Marriage Crusader? Not Always

Cruz - a two faced pandering whore?
Ted Cruz is already in trouble with some elements of the Christofascist base of the Republican Party for having dined - and presumably begged money from - gay New York hoteliers, Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner.  Weiderpass and Reisner meanwhile are experiencing their own blowback from the insanely stupid soiree.  Now, Bloomberg is reviewing some of Cruz's past that indicates that he has not always been the anti-gay crusader that he is trying to convince the unwashed Christofascist masses he claims to be.  I admit that I despise Cruz, and one can only hope his past two faced conduct comes back to bite him in his very ample ass.  Here are excerpts from Bloomberg:
Senator Ted Cruz, who wants to be the Republican Party's lead crusader against gay marriage, ducked the opportunity to play a critical role in turning back the movement in its infancy.

In 2003, the year Cruz became Texas's top government litigator, the state lost a crucial case as the U.S. Supreme Court decided that state laws banning homosexual sex as illegal sodomy were unconstitutional. The decision in Lawrence v. Texas paved the way for the court's consideration of gay marriage. "The final victory for gay rights was foreshadowed when the court decided Lawrence v Texas," predicted Walter Dellinger, a former U.S. assistant attorney general and solicitor general who’s argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court.

Cruz is making the gay marriage debate the cornerstone of a bid to rally conservatives to his 2016 presidential bid, but same-sex issues haven't always been the top priority for a lawmaker who built his profile as a limited-government, Tea Party-aligned conservative.

As Texas solicitor general when the Lawrence v. Texas case came before the Supreme Court, Cruz was "very much in the middle of all this drama," . . . . Yet "Cruz remained absolutely silent," Katine said. The case remained assigned instead to a Harris County district attorney. 
"One would expect the state solicitor to argue a case of this magnitude," said Dellinger. 

Interviews with a dozen former fellow law students, professors, lawyers and government officials show that his lack of involvement in the Lawrence case is part of a broader narrative about the Texas senator's relationship with the gay community: While he has consistently opposed gay rights, he has often stayed away from the front lines of the fight and even courted gay donors.
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Religious conservative voters who care more about religious liberty and social issues are now the linchpin of Cruz's candidacy, and many of them believe the gay marriage debate is at a tipping point as the nation's moral fabric unravels.

But when the opportunity came to make that case to the nation's highest court, Cruz appears to have demurred. Bill Delmore, then chief of the Harris County appellate division, said the lead attorney had asked the attorney general--Cruz' boss--to take over the case as it headed to the Supreme Court. That request was rejected . . .

While Democrats accuse Cruz of being anti-gay, he has been friendly with gay donors.

Recently, as the New York Times first reported, Cruz attended a fundraising reception at a gay couple's home in in Manhattan. In his brief 2009 bid to be elected Texas attorney general, a large portion of the money Cruz collected came from donors with ties to the gay rights movement.

He accepted $250,000 from gay donor Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, who is also a top contributor to the national gay conservative group GOProud. Thiel also gave $2 million to Club for Growth, a super political action committee that put $705,657 toward Cruz's Senate run.

[U]nlike a number of Texas legislators and public officials, Cruz was not a leader in opposing gay rights and marriage equality, said Glen Maxey, the first openly gay Texas legislator who founded the state's gay and lesbian rights lobby, now called Equality Texas, in 1985.
There's more, but the take away seems to be that Cruz is trying to scam the Christofascists to further his own interest.  In the process, he is rewriting history.  I hope the Christofascist wake up to the reality that Cruz is trying to take them for a ride. 

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