Video: Ted Cruz versus Ellen Page on gay rights and discrimination

Lots of media buzz around this exchange this afternoon, not because it’s terribly interesting or illuminating but because it features two famous people arguing over politics and, apparently, that’s reason enough. (I … guess Page still qualifies as famous? You’ve seen “Juno” and/or “Inception,” right?) The thing is, she’s all wrong for the task here, which was obviously to channel LGBT rage at the social conservative Cruz. She’s soft-spoken, even polite when he tells her he’ll answer her question but won’t engage in a back and forth. The key to a million YouTube views was to blow glitter in his face and screech “homophobe,” not let the guy actually respond. Since when is this “debate” an actual debate to the left?

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Anyway. You know how these arguments go by now. Page wants to know why it’s okay for some businesses to discriminate against gays. Cruz wants to know why it’s okay to force religious business owners to provide services to a ceremony like a gay wedding to which they object on faith grounds. Well, says Page, Christians haven’t been persecuted historically in America the way gays have. Don’t you think they deserve special protection? At that point I figured Cruz would counter by giving her a lecture on free exercise and conscientious objection, but no — instead he asks her why she’s more concerned with getting Americans to bake wedding cakes for gays than stopping ISIS from tossing gays off of buildings. That’s horrible too, Page concedes, but ISIS isn’t the only persecutor worldwide. What about Jamaica? What about it, says Cruz? Are you seriously comparing state persecution of gays in the Middle East to what random thugs do in other countries? Etc etc etc. Bottom line: Page wants her cake. And the way things are going in the courts, she’ll get it.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 21, 2024
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