More On Ted Cruz

Please notice that the title of this post is More On Ted Cruz. I could have made it More On Moron Ted Cruz. I'm trying to be nicer, even to morons. It's just so hard.

From Ted Cruz, Ellen Page debate balance of religious liberty laws and LGBT rights:

"At the end of the day, what we should not be doing is persecuting people who follow their faith," the Texas Republican said.

Here comes the cheap joke. It's ok with Cruz if "we" persecute people who follow their faith at the beginning of the day and during the middle of the day, just not at the end of the day. End of cheap, stupid joke.

Seriously, why does Cruz have an obsession with "people who follow their faith"? A person running for president should be concerned with the persecution of all people. The context of this quote from Cruz involves Ellen Page asking Cruz about LGBT rights.

"A lot of religious people also used the Bible to defend segregation, to defend slavery," Page said. "I think religious freedom is so important and so crucial for all religions. LGBT people are worried they will directly be discriminated against."

Cruz replied by saying that Christians led the charge to end segregation, and argued that men and women of faith had a right to act on those beliefs.

"At the end of the day, what we should not be doing is persecuting people who follow their faith," the Texas Republican said.

 Cruz obviously has no concern for the rights of anyone except "people of faith".

The way that Cruz uses words fascinates me. For instance, notice how he changes the topic of the discussion from discrimination to persecution. Discrimination is a secular word while persecution has religious connotations. Notice how he changes the subject of the discussion from LGBT discrimination to religious persecution.

Religious Persecution:

Persecution in this case may refer to confiscation or destruction of property, incitement to hate, arrest, imprisonment, beatings, torture, and execution.

The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism, in which social success largely required individuals to profess atheism, stay away from churches and even vandalize them; this attitude was especially militant during the middle Stalinist era from 1929-1939. The Soviet Union attempted to suppress religion over wide areas of its influence, including places like central Asia, the post-World War II East bloc and the Socialist People's Republic of Albania under Enver Hoxha went so far as to officially ban all religious practices.

If Ted Cruz is seeing religious persecution in the United States in 2015, then perhaps he needs to have his eyes checked.