When Ellen Page came out about a year-and-a-half ago, she explained: ‘I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility. I also [come out] selfishly, because I’m tired of hiding and I’m tired of lying by omission.’
And the Canadian actress is sticking to her word. Not only is she appearing in a film with Julianne Moore about one of the foremost fights in LGBT equality, but she’s getting political with actual politicians.
At the recent Iowa State Fair (a big country fair except it’s American and full of cows, music and lots of food on a stick), she saw Ted Cruz, one of the Republican candidates for the presidency campaign. He was grilling burgers, smiling for photos, and having a fun old PR moment.
And she asked him about his thoughts on LGBT being fired by their employers on the basis of their sexuality or gender.
‘There are also a lot of religious people who used the Bible to defend segregation, to defend slavery. LGBT people are worried that they’ll directly be discriminated against,’ she explained.
You see, individuals have previously used their right to being Christians to defend all sorts of heinous acts, so will this extend to LGBT people’s rights when Ted becomes president?
Well, he replied: ‘At the end of the day, what we shouldn’t be doing is persecuting people… for living according to their faith.’
He then went on to explain that because gay people are being killed by ISIS that, well, Ellen should go and poke her nose somewhere else.
The funny thing is, you can choose what you believe in, but you can’t choose who you are. Still, Ted said that Ellen was a proponent of ‘liberal intolerance’.
After a few days to think about the interaction, Ted explained to NewMax: ‘That wasn’t a big surprise that she and I had some disagreements there.’
He said, ‘An awful lot of folks in the media, an awful lot of folks in Hollywood, they dismiss the assault on religious liberty. They say it isn’t real. What we’re seeing right now is this liberal fascism and intolerance. Their object is to persecute, to punish, to fine any Bible-following Christian or believer that believes in the biblical definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.’
Or it’s just, you know, to make sure LGBT people don’t lose out on jobs because of who they are.
Like this? You might also be interested in:
Donald Trump’s Period Joke Spells The End Of His Own Popularity
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.