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Ted Cruz: Gay business owners should be able to discriminate against Christians too
US presidential candidate Ted Cruz has said LGBTI-owned businesses should be able to discriminate against Christians and vice versa.
The Republican has made his campaign on defending ‘religious liberty’ and he held a rally in Iowa on Friday (21 August), where he brought out Christian business owners who had been ‘persecuted’ for turning away gay couples.
In an interview with Newsmax, Cruz said: ‘Imagine if this were inverted.
‘Imagine if there were a gay florist – now I know that’s hard to imagine, a gay florist – but just go with the hypo[thetical] for a second.
‘Imagine if two evangelical Christians came to a gay florist and they wanted to get married, and the florist said, “You know what? I disagree with your faith. I have problems with your faith.”
‘You have no entitlement to force that florist to provide flowers at the Christians’ wedding. We are a pluralistic nation that tolerates diversity.’
ThinkProgress notes that federal law suggests otherwise: ‘Religion is a protected class. If that hypothetical gay florist refused service on the basis of the customers’ religion, that would be a blatant violation, and he would be just as accountable for that discrimination as other vendors have been for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.’
There are currently no federal protections for LGBTI people, but the Equality Act seeks to remedy this.
Watch the full interview below:
The post Ted Cruz: Gay business owners should be able to discriminate against Christians too appeared first on Gay Star News.
Darren Wee
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