Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican whose rise to power owes a lot to gay money, is repaying the favor by introducing a bill that would essentially DOMA for states. The measure, the State Marriage Defense Act, would basically stop the federal government from granting marriage benefits to couples living in non-marriage equality states.
“I support traditional marriage,” Cruz said, stating the obvious. “Under President Obama, the federal government has tried to re-define marriage, and to undermine the constitutional authority of each state to define marriage consistent with the values of its citizens. The Obama Administration should not be trying to force gay marriage on all 50 states.”
Of course, the real underminer of constitutional authority was the Supreme Court, which struck down DOMA in the first place. Then again, even Cruz stops short of saying the arbiters of constitutional law have no right to rule on constitutional matters.
Cruz is a beloved by the Tea Party and despised by those who know him best, fellow Republicans in the Senate. He is joined in his quest to return to the 1990s by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, another Tea Party favorite. A similar measure has been introduced in the House by Randy Weber, another Texas Republican.
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In a Senate controlled by Democrats, Cruz’s bill is going nowhere. But Cruz isn’t interested in passing laws. He’s interested in making statements. And he just signaled that he intends to make opposition to marriage equality a litmus test for other Republicans, with a particular eye to the 2016 presidential candidates.
DShucking
I’d like to hold this fucker down and tickle him til he shits his pants.
jwrappaport
@DShucking: You made my evening. Thank you.
BlackHouston
Ted Cruz is a scary dude. He’s dangerous because he’s ‘crazy’, SUPER intelligent (but still a homophobe) and willing to do anything to get the seat of presidency. Republicans hate him because Ted Cruz is not just another loony Michele Bachman or Louie Gohmert, he’s worse and has the necessary “intelligence” to yield a lot of power with these tea party folks.
Respect4all
“…return to the 1990s”? How about “return to the 1490’s”? Why don’t we return Ted Cruz to Canada or Cuba, or whatever dark planet he came from?
Joetx
I hate it that 56.4% of the voters in my home state voted for this total POS.
And I hate it even more that he’ll get reelected in 2018 simply b/c he’s got an “R” behind his name & says the magic words “I’m a true conservative,” which is like a dog whistle to the majority idiots that vote RepubliCON.
tjr101
Have any of you heard the rantings of Ted Cruz’s father? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, the whole family is a shitbag of nutcases.
Cagnazzo82
Gay Republicans. Meet your future candidate.
robirob
Oh Ted, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to put the lid back on. You will look like a damn fool for trying. To quote an infamous mom in Hollywood history: They will laugh at you!
Harley
Even hitler was elected…….the first time.
Mezaien
IDIOT #1 john McCain, born in PANAM, IDIOT #2 Ted Cruz, born in Canada, the two cannot be the president.
DShucking
@Mezaien: John McCain was born on a US navy vessel so he is legally qualified to be president if elected.
Stefano
@BlackHouston : i told you !!! LOL
Caliban
One thing thats freaky is how much Cruz looks like the infamous Sen Joe McCarthy, in addition to acting like him. He’s truly despicable.
Cam
And once again there is the Tea Party, only concerned about fiscal and budget issues right?
Cruz is just making it that much easier for the Democrats.
the other Greg
@Mezaien: @DShucking: John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone which at the time was a territory of the U.S. Technically it was always a BIT of a constitutional gray area (but not much of one) whether he was actually eligible to run for prez, since I think such a thing had never happened before. At any rate nobody ever formally challenged it and brought it to a court, even his worst enemies (like George W. Bush).
Canada Cruz is an immigrant and is NOT eligible to run for president! That’s just the way it is. And I’d like to see the Teabaggers try to do that, after all their hysteria about Obama supposedly being born in Kenya when he was definitely born in Hawaii (two years after it became a state – no gray area) and all their rac*st xenophobia about immigrants in general.
alterego1980
@the other Greg: I don’t know anything about his parents but if at least one of his parents was an American citizen when he was born, then he was born an American citizen and would be eligible to be president. It wouldn’t matter that he wasn’t born on US territory.
the other Greg
@alterego1980: That’s an argument I actually do agree with, but one that has never been established by the courts.
Yes, even if Obama HAD been born in Kenya, his mother was undeniably born & raised in Kansas, but the Teabaggers didn’t give a sh*t about that. NOW they suddenly care about that argument? I don’t buy it.
I’m being a bit of a provocateur here and I think, since the wingnuts were such deranged fuckin’ a-holes about Obama’s imaginary foreign birth, they deserve the bad karma and we should really screw them with Cruz being an undeniable immigrant! We should fight it all the way just to cause them grief. BWA-HA-HA.
Caleb in SC
@alterego1980: @the other Greg: Actually, it is well established that if one of your parents is an American citizen, it does not matter where you are born — in a territory or not — you are still a natural American citizen. The birthers just contorted the logic to fit their agenda. Cruz is eligible to run for the presidency. I, for one, am glad if he does. The GOP will alienate regular folk with their high dose of cray-cray. Long story short: It doesn’t matter how much gas the GOP puts in their time machine, they are not going to turn the country back to the 1950s.
Scribe38
@Cagnazzo82: I agree. Gay GOP members never realize they will never be rich or white enough for the party to forget they are also queer. The GOP will never leave us alone. They will hunt us until they have nothing left.
Taliaferro
The GOP has become so emasculated by its tea party segment that it has allowed a few rabid and vocal members to dictate policy and position. Cruz is chief among them. The GOP is doomed if it cannot move beyond these cretins. I, for one, look forward to the day the GOP is defunct.
Bad Ass Biker
Just wait, for all of his homophobic rantings I am willing to bet that eventually Cruz will be discovered with a boy friend or a rent boy.
Riverhog
This Guy has to be a FRUITCAKE he against everything and has caused nothing but heartache for this country. I hope the state he is from wise up and votes him out. We do not need idiots like him in Washington we have to many all ready.
scotshot
Cruz was born to an American mother and a terrorist Cuban father. The sticking point though, is that Cruz holds dual citizenship. He’s never bothered to renounce his Canadian citizenship – a process that involves time and several steps. Add to this the fact his terrorist father didn’t become an American citizen until roughly 8 years ago.
scotshot
Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a cuban terrorist father. The problem is he has dual citizenship – The US & Canada. He’s never bothered to renounce his Canadian citizenship and that may be a problem running for President. It also involves several steps to accomplish and time. Add to this the fact his terrorist father only became a citizen roughly 10 years ago.
How American are these people?
SteveDenver
Obsession with anti-gay measures has practically become its own stereotype. I hope Cruz is caught soon smoking the “leaky cigar.”
mmedesevigne
@Respect4all: Hey, hey, hey! I’m in Canada where gay marriage has been the law of the land since 2005. We don’t want that nutbar here, regardless of the accident of his birth. And you’ve got some nerve calling Canada a ‘dark planet’.
BigWoody
I want to believe the gay billionaire backing Cruz has a subversive strategy to divide and conquer the republican party by supporting a bat-shit crazy teabagger.
Peter Theil, the gay billionaire, poured money into Ron Paul’s campaign, siphoning more votes away from Bush #1 than from Clinton. Ron Paul changed the outcome of that election.
Republicans have used race, gay rights, women’s rights and immigration as strategies to divide the democratic vote for years. The pendulum now swings in our favor because the fearful old white bigots cannot and will not change.
Elloreigh
This bill should go a lot of nowhere, other than in the trashbin. The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Windsor case has already made clear that if a state tells the federal government that a couple is married, then the federal government has to recognize that marriage. The bill is misnamed, as it does nothing to protect any actual state interest. A state has no interest in preventing a couple that was legally married elsewhere from receiving federal recognition. No state is being required by federal law to recognize another state’s same-sex marriage. Section 2 of DOMA, which ‘protects’ states from having to do so, is still the law. A law that prevents the federal government from recognizing a marriage if it was performed somewhere other than the person’s current state of residence provides zero benefit to that state.
So I call shenanigans. Cruz is perpetrating a gross deception by pretending that this bill does anything to protect a state’s genuine interests.
Kangol
@BigWoody:
Exactly. I just have to wonder why any gay person would vote for the GOP at the national level, or the Tea Party in particular, given how homophobic both are, but I guess it comes down to prioritizing personal wealth and economic privilege above all else. (Though it can’t be financial security, since the country has suffered its worst 20th century economic collapses under GOP Presidents (Hoover, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II).
@Harley:
I used to hear this all the time, and finally checked it out. The real story surprised me.
It turns out Hitler wasn’t elected to the Presidency, or any other governmental office until after he and the NSDAP (Nazi Party) had seized power. He was stateless because he had renounced his Austrian citizenship in 1925, but did not gain Germany citizenship until 1932, when he was appointed to a post in Brunswick.
He was the head of the NSDAP, however, and ran against General Paul von Hindenburg for the Presidency of Germany in 1932, lost, and eventually maneuvered his way into office as Chancellor by having the elderly (and soon to die) Hindenburg appoint him Chancellor, something that Hindenburg was loath to do.
Hitler assassinated one rival, Schleicher. He outmaneuvered (killing all the associates of) another rival, von Papen. That left only Hindenburg as the check on his power. As soon as Hindenburg died, Hitler and the NSDAP quickly passed laws, using the flawed mechanism of the dead Weimar Republic, to consolidate power, and the rest is history.
tohe
His skill to harness power through ignorance just doesn’t work anymore. America has moved on, so much so that a Ted Cruz no longer appeals to a Republican party, but rather to its most radical diminishing subset.
scoobydube
I can see it now: It’s going to be CRUZ/LEE ticket in 2016. And let the “FUN” begin. It’s going to better then the “old” Carol Burnett variety show on CBS, laughs ALL around …..
SteveDenver
@scoobydube: Sounds good to me! Let’s see just how popular Cruz is with the population in general, not just his gerrmandered district.
SteveDenver
What next?
Dialing back women’s suffrage?
Putting Blacks back to work… on plantations?
EdgarCarpenter
Earlier Texan congressmen justified their restrictive marriage laws by saying that they prevented “offense against public morals, decency, and chastity”.
That was in reference, of course, to the Texan prohibition of interracial marriage, a restriction which is central to Traditional Marriage in Texas. It was put in place in the late 1830s, as soon as Texas gained independence from Mexico, and lasted until it was struck down by activist judges in 1967. There are still many preachers who sermonize against mixed-race marriages in Texas today, citing the Bible to support themselves.
So Cruz is in favor of banning interracial marriage, too, since he’s an ardent supporter of Traditional Marriage. I wonder why he refuses to go public about that part of his belief?
EdgarCarpenter
@SteveDenver: He’s a senator, not a congressman. He was elected by a majority of the state’s voters. I certainly hope he’s ousted by the majority of the state’s voters when he comes up for re-election.
Mdterp01
Does this guy actually think he has a shot at the Presidency? I know the GOP and Tea Party are delusional, but I didn’t think they were THAT delusional. I guess I am giving them more credit than they deserve.