MaddowBlog: Ted Cruz questions whether liberals are ‘obsessed with sex’

[Panich52]

In April, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was asked about anti-gay discrimination, which the right-wing senator dismissed as a relatively trivial concern. Cotton told CNN he thinks “it’s important that we have a sense of perspective about our priorities. In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay.”
 
It was an odd argument. Not only does it compare the United States to a Middle Eastern theocracy on the issue of civil rights, but Cotton’s suggestion is that so long as gay people aren’t being executed, the LGBT community shouldn’t complain about public discrimination.
 
On the campaign trail yesterday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) offered a similar message in his home state. The Washington Post reported:

…Texas’s junior U.S. senator – visiting Beaumont to meet privately with county officials and others – got in a light sparring round with reporters, mainly working on his attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton and defending his views on same-sex marriage.
 
“Is there something about the left – and I am going to put the media in this category – that is obsessed with sex?” Cruz asked after fielding multiple questions on gay rights. “ISIS is executing homosexuals – you want to talk about gay rights? This week was a very bad week for gay rights because the expansion of ISIS, the expansion of radical, theocratic, Islamic zealots that crucify Christians, that behead children and that murder homosexuals – that ought to be concerning you far more than asking six questions all on the same topic.”

The far-right senator then started complaining bitterly about msnbc, for reasons that weren’t entirely clear.
 
Let’s unwrap Cruz’s little tantrum, because I think this is important in the context of the 2016 race.
 
Whether the Texas Republican wants to acknowledge this or not, Cruz very deliberately chose to present himself as the candidate of social conservatives, including a campaign kickoff at an evangelical college started by a TV preacher who blamed 9/11 on Americans. Cruz saw an opening within the GOP field and is now trying to take advantage of it.
 
The context matters – those who base much of their platform on social conservatism shouldn’t whine when they get questions about marriage rights. Cruz is, after all, the one who’s prepared to push a constitutional amendment to prevent same-sex couples from getting married
 
Perhaps “the left” is less preoccupied with sex than the junior senator from Texas.

More
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruz-questions-whether-liberals-are-obsessed-sex?cid=eml_mra_20150520

[longship]

1. Indeed, projection is strong with Senator Cruz, and with all GOP. R&K nt

[flobee1]

2. another crime punished by death

Is corruption or Bribery. So, Ted, when you get run out of town, be thankful that's all that happened