Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz has made no secret of his feelings on marriage equality. His opposition to the basic civil rights of LGBT people is so well-documented that The Advocate named him Phobie of the Year in 2014.
But Cruz went above and beyond his own outlandishly hateful statements in a Thursday conversation with conservative talk radio host Eric Metaxas, reports Right Wing Watch.
"We are seeing today profound threats to religious liberty in America, I think the greatest threats we've ever seen," Cruz said.
Those threats were personified in the backlash to so-called religious freedom bills in Indiana and Arkansas, Cruz said, incorrectly claiming it was only Democrats who railed against such "license to discriminate" legislation.
"[The Democratic Party has] gotten so extreme and so radical in its devotion to mandatory gay marriage that they've decided there's no room for the religious liberty protected under the First Amendment," Cruz said.
The Texas senator went on to note that the U.S. was founded by men and women fleeing religious oppression, falsely claiming those colonists were "coming to seek out a land where every one of us could worship God Almighty with all of our hearts, minds, and souls."
Hear Cruz's hyperbole for yourself below.