Ted Cruz: American people want to protect traditional marriage

July 06, 2015

WRITER

Progressives claim that the American people fully support gay marriage, but is there something else at play? Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz believes the evidence shows that people vote at the ballot box to preserve marriage as a union between a man and a woman. During an interview with Glenn, Sen. Cruz explained why he believes marriage is a question left to the states, not the federal government.

Below is a transcript of this segment:

Glenn: Sure. Let’s start here because you have an interesting view of the Supreme Court. I’m so tempted to ask you if you think John Roberts has ever been blackmailed by somebody in the NSA because I don’t understand his rulings lately, but I won’t go down that road. What I would like to know is as a guy who has argued in front of the Supreme Court, has worked in the Supreme Court, we are off the Constitution, making it up as they go along now, right?

Sen. Cruz: That is absolutely right.

Glenn: The ruling on ObamaCare, I can’t even fathom. They used to say—correct me if I’m wrong, not an attorney—didn’t they used to say you got that wrong, send it back, do it right, and then bring it to us, right?

Sen. Cruz: That is exactly right. When the rulings came out last week, I commented publicly that these are some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.

Glenn: I agree.

Sen. Cruz: The entire liberal media went apoplectic with that comment. They said darkest, what about 9/11? What about Pearl Harbor?

Glenn: This is the end of the Constitution.

Sen. Cruz: Within 24 hours, on Thursday, six justices ignored federal law, rewrote ObamaCare, literally took out an eraser, erased key portions of the bill in order to force that failed law on millions of Americans, and then on Friday, five justices ignored the Constitution and declared the authority to rewrite marriage, to strike down the marriage laws in all 50 states.

Glenn: So help me out on this because I think there’s a lot of people, especially the millennials, that they’re like cool with look, it’s about love, it’s about love. I’ve tried to explain my daughter, and she gets it now that she’s been watching, but she came to me, and she’s like dad, it’s about love. I said if it was about love, I’d be totally cool, I’d be totally cool. God tells me no, but that’s not my job to judge them. I can’t change their behavior, so I’d be totally cool. It’s about changing and dismantling almost everything in our society. She now sees what is happening along the way. Explain to people that might be thinking who are you, Ted Cruz, to judge me?

Sen. Cruz: Well look, you are right, this is hand-in-hand with a concerted assault on religious liberty and a concerted assault on the Judeo-Christian values this country was built on.

Glenn: I’ve heard them, they tell you it’s absolutely not.

Sen. Cruz: Well, they will say that, but the facts speak otherwise. Let’s begin with one of the premises that they repeat over and over again. They say the American people want this, and they point to poll after poll that show percentages of Americans who want this. They point to millennials, and say millennials want this. You know, it’s very easy to design a poll to get the result you want, and there are a lot of advocates here. We are seeing a propaganda effort from the mainstream media and from Hollywood.

I can give you two facts that are counter to the notion that the American people want this. Number one, 40 states, 4-0, have passed either laws or constitutional amendments protecting traditional marriage. When it goes to the ballot box, the people vote very differently from what the Hollywood advocates claim the American people want. A few years ago, the state of California, not a conservative state, bright blue, liberal California voted on marriage, and a majority of Californians voted for protecting traditional marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

You know who voted overwhelmingly for that? Hispanics and African-Americans, so this notion that gets repeated every day on the mainstream media is baloney. This is they’re attempting—if it were true that the American people wanted this, there would be no need for a court case because they could win at the ballot box. They’re doing this because they haven’t been winning at the ballot box.

Glenn: It’s not about that. Your opposition to this is not about gay marriage. One of your big funders as a senator, if you don’t mind me saying, is Peter Thiel. He’s a libertarian, gay guy.

Sen. Cruz: Yes.

Glenn: You’re friends. You went to college together.

Sen. Cruz: My touchstone has always been the Constitution. Under the Constitution, marriage has been a question for the states.

Glenn: Is marriage a human right itself? Traditional marriage, is that in the Constitution? Is that a protected right?

Sen. Cruz: The human rights that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but when it comes to how marriage is designed—you know, when I talk with proponents of gay marriage, I say listen, you and I can disagree perhaps as a policy matter whether gay marriage is a good idea. I say to folks who advocate gay marriage, we can disagree on that, and reasonable minds can differ. I strongly support traditional marriage as the union of one man and one woman, but we can have a reasonable debate about that. Under the Constitution, there is an avenue to seek to change the marriage laws in your state, which is to convince your fellow citizens we should change the laws. Now, you’ve got to win the argument.

Glenn: But you know that that would break down across state lines. I move, and then I’m not going to recognize, etc., etc.

Sen. Cruz: But Glenn, it hasn’t. We’ve had right now unelected judges have torn down the marriage laws in some states, so right now today the law is that there are gay marriages in some states. In other states, like the state of Texas, there are not. It has worked perfectly fine. I’ll tell an interesting story. So, a little over a year ago, I was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, utterly surreal, by the way, to be on The Tonight Show. You’re like what on earth am I doing here?

First question Jay asked, it’s Hollywood, he says okay, you’re a Republican. Gay marriage, why do you hate gay people? My response, I said listen, Jay, I believe in traditional marriage, but I’m a constitutionalist. The Constitution leaves this as questions for the states. If the people of California decide to adopt one definition of marriage, they have the prerogative to debate that and do that, but if the people of other states, like my home state of Texas, decide to protect traditional marriage under the Constitution, that’s their prerogative. You know the interesting thing, Glenn, the studio audience in Burbank, California, burst into applause. Jay did a double take. Wait, you’re a conservative Republican. You’re not supposed to get applause from a California audience.

Glenn: So, here’s the thing, my solution to this has been it’s not a federal thing at all because of the Tenth Amendment. It’s not. You say give it to the states. But why is it even in the states? Why do we even have to have that? Isn’t it a contract between me, my spouse, and who’s marrying me? Why not just end it entirely? Because it seems to me what they’ve done is now made this a civil right, constitutional civil right, which now puts all of our churches and all of our schools and everybody else in line for massive litigation.

Sen. Cruz: Well listen, the problem with that is that the government and the courts have always played a role. Whenever you have marriages, you’re going to have divorces. When you have divorces, you’re going to have to dispose of property. Even more importantly, you have children, you’ve got parental visitation, you’ve got custody. Those are questions that under our legal system are going to have to be decided, and the government can’t totally wash its hands of that. If you look at the origins of marriage, marriage long preceded the United States of America. It wasn’t the Constitution that invented marriage or the Declaration or the Supreme Court. For millennia, marriage has been the union of one man and one woman.

Glenn: Church.

Sen. Cruz: It was ordained by God. It was designed, I believe, to reflect the relationship of Christ and the church, and it was designed for the raising of children. So, there is an inherent role when it comes to kids and if a marriage breaks up what to do with the kids that the state can’t wash its hands of. I will say this, the next major battlefield will be religious liberty, and it’s already Christians are being persecuted. People of faith are being persecuted for following biblical teachings.

Glenn: So then let me go there because I think there is a massive wake-up coming. Let me ask you this as a question. If the Christians and people of faith, the Jews, everybody who practices real religion, are we done if they don’t wake up and stand up now?

Sen. Cruz: If people of faith do not stand up in this next election, I fear the greatest nation in the history of the world will be lost.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Colorado counselor fights back after faith declared “illegal”

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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