Ted Cruz: Media tries to twist the question of marriage into a battle of emotions and personalities

Speaking with radio show host Hugh Hewitt, U.S. Senator and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz said the media "tries to twist the question of marriage" into "a battle of emotions and personalities.”

Hewitt: What matters more, knowing if a candidate for the presidency will attend a gay wedding, or whether he and she, he or she will destroy the Islamic State before it throws hundreds, if not thousands, of more gay men to their deaths from towers? What matters more?

Cruz: There’s no doubt the latter does. But look. That’s part of the ‘gotcha game’ the mainstream media plays, where they come after Republicans on every front, and it’s designed to caricature Republicans, to make them look stupid, or evil, or crazy, or extreme. And it’s because, sadly, most media players are not actual, objective journalists. They are active partisan players. Right now the mainstream media are the Praetorian Guard protecting the Obama presidency, and there is no group on this planet more ready … for Hillary than the mainstream media.

We need to focus on what matters. The American people care about jobs, growth and opportunity. The American people care about defending our constitutional rights. And the American people care, as you rightly noted, about restoring America’s leadership in the world and defending this nation. ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism poses an enormous threat to this nation, and we need clear-eyed, strong leadership to stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and to be willing to call it by its name, which, sadly, the current president is not willing to do.

Hewitt: Well, having put it into context, now I want to ask the question that was asked to Senator Rubio yesterday. If you had a loved one or a friend getting married in a same-sex wedding would you attend it?

Cruz: Well, I will tell you. I haven’t faced that circumstance. I have not had a loved one, have a gay wedding.

You know, at the end of the day, what the media tries to twist the question of marriage into is, they try to twist it into a battle of emotions and personalities. And they try to make it say, so for example, you know, they routinely say, ‘Well gosh, any conservative must hate people who are gay.’ As you know, that has nothing to do with the operative legal question.

And listen. I’m a Christian, the Scripture commands us to love everyone, and to love everyone, and all of us are sinners.

It has been a question for elected legislatures in each of the 50 states. What we’ve seen in recent years from the left is the federal government and unelected federal judges imposing their own policy preferences to tear down the marriage laws of the states. So, if someone is running for public office, it is perfectly legitimate to ask them their views on whether they’re willing to defend the Constitution, which leaves marriage to the states, or whether they want to impose their own extreme policy views, like so many on the left are doing. Like Barack Obama does. Like Hillary Clinton does.