Socially conservative GOP presidential candidates, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, are responding to a recent report about fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) alleged “double-speak” on protecting traditional marriage.
“More Cruz double-speak,” Santorum’s spokesperson Matt Beynon stated. “Senator Santorum and Senator Cruz signed a pledge with the National Organization for Marriage that said they would defend and pursue a federal marriage amendment. What Senator Cruz said before New York donors doesn’t comport what he told Iowa conservatives or the National Organization for Marriage.”
“Senator Santorum agrees with Abraham Lincoln that states don’t have the right to do wrong. Apparently, Senator Cruz disagrees with both Santorum and Lincoln,” Beynon added.
Beynon was referring to a recent Politico story that alleges Cruz stated that protecting traditional marriage wouldn’t be his top priority during a fundraiser in New York, but when in Iowa had vowed to make opposition to same-sex marriage a top issue.
Politico reports:
In June, Ted Cruz promised on NPR that opposition to gay marriage would be “front and center” in his 2016 campaign.
In July, he said the Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage was the “very definition of tyranny” and urged states to ignore the ruling.
But in December, behind closed doors at a big-dollar Manhattan fundraiser, the quickly ascending presidential candidate assured a Republican gay-rights supporter that a Cruz administration would not make fighting same-sex marriage a top priority.
In a recording provided to POLITICO, Cruz answers a flat “No” when asked whether fighting gay marriage is a “top-three priority,” an answer that pleased his socially moderate hosts but could surprise some of his evangelical backers.
Politico noted that a “well-known Republican operative not affiliated with a 2016 campaign” responded to Cruz’s alleged comments during the New York fundraiser saying, “Wow. Does this not undermine all of his positions? Abortion, Common Core — all to the states? … Worse, he sounds like a slick D.C. politician — says one thing on the campaign trail and trims his sails with NYC elites. Not supposed to be like that.”
Catherine Frazier, Cruz’s spokesperson told Politico, “These comments are nothing new. … This is nothing different from what he says all the time.”
Cruz said his priority is to defend the Constitution. Of course marriage is a part of that, as well as free speech, gun rights, religious liberty, and the issues he discusses every day on the campaign trail. This is exactly what he said in New York and those trying to misconstrue his words are clearly desperate for something to stop his momentum. So they are resorting to dishonest attacks.
Fellow GOP presidential candidate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also responded to the alleged contradictory statements.
“Conservatives are being asked to ‘coalesce’ around yet another corporately-funded candidate that says something very different at a big donor fundraiser in Manhattan than at a church in Marshalltown,” Huckabee charged in a press release. “Shouldn’t a candidate be expected to have authenticity and consistency, instead of having to look at a map to decide what to believe and what to say?”
One reason I do respect Trump is that whether you agree with him or not, he doesn’t pretend with his principles or change his message depending on his location or audience. If issues like marriage and the sanctity of life are truly issues of principle and not just politics, then there should not be geographical boundaries to what is right and wrong.
Cruz recently replaced Donald Trump as the GOP frontrunner in Iowa and ranks second nationally in a new CNN/ORC poll.
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