Ted Cruz Rebuffs Actress Ellen Page on Charges of LGBT ‘Discrimination’ at Iowa State Fair

Alternative headline: “Actress from That One Movie about Roller Derby Confronts Princeton Debate Champ — Goes about as You Might Expect.”

In preparation for his religious liberty rally in Des Moines this evening, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz spent a few minutes today debating the subject with a not-too-friendly interlocutor: Juno star Ellen Page, now traversing the country for her Vice documentary program, “Gaycation.” Page accused Cruz of supporting “discrimination” against LGBT citizens. Cruz parried that the debate that has ensnared florists and photographers and pizzerias of late is not about discrimination, but about religious liberty: “We are a country that respects pluralism and diversity,” said Cruz, “and there is this liberal intolerance that says that anyone that dares follow a Biblical teaching of marriage, that is the union of one man and one woman must be persecuted, must be fined and must be driven out of business.”

Not surprisingly, Page was unsympathetic.

Politico has a transcript of the debate, of which, suffice it to say, Cruz got the upper hand. But it is worth noting one particular moment that seems indicative of the intellectual firepower one should expect from celebrity “gotcha” attempts like the above. Cruz offered Page the following hypothetical scenario:

Cruz: Imagine, hypothetically, you had a gay florist, and imagine two evangelical Christians wanted to get married, and the gay florist decided, ‘You know what, I disagree with your faith, I don’t want to provide flowers.’”

Page: I would say they should provide the flowers.

Applaud Page for her consistency, I guess. But what that consistency betrays is her rejection of conscience protections altogether, and her endorsement of radical government intervention in all such matters. If a LGBT couple wanted those pork chops Senator Cruz was grilling for their wedding ceremony, does the kosher caterer down the street have to serve them? By Miss Page’s thinking, apparently so.

For someone so passionate about expanding “freedom,” she is suggesting a fairly tyrannical way to go about achieving it.