Ted Cruz has described his recent confrontation with Ellen Page as an example of "liberal fascism" and predicts he won’t be getting any support from many "Hollywood celebrities".
Page confronted Cruz as he was campaigning at the Iowa State Fair last week and asserted that it was “un-American” to allow LGBT people to be legally fired in the workplace for their sexual orientation.
Cruz’s stance, however, was that it was wrong for the government to persecute people of faith for “standing up to their faith”, such as the landmark case of a Christian baker refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding earlier this year.
On the argument with Page, he told Newsmax’s Ed Berliner: "That was not a big surprise that she and I had some disagreements there.
Read more: Ellen Page took on Ted Cruz over LGBT rights
"An awful lot of folks in the media, an awful lot of folks in Hollywood, they dismiss the assault on religious liberty. They say it isn’t real," he said.
"I’m a Christian and scripture commands Christians to love everybody,” he added. “This is about whether the government is going to persecute people of faith for standing up to their faith."
Cruz added that he had told Ellen Page a gay florist should not be forced to provide flowers for a Christian wedding, just as a Christian baker should not have to cater to a same-sex wedding if they don’t want to.
"What we’re seeing right now is this liberal fascism and intolerance,” he said. “Their object is to persecute, to punish, to fine any Bible-following Christian or believer that believes in the biblical definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman."
He went on to say that we should “love everybody”, though, which, given everything he said before that, seems slightly contradictory.
