WATCH: Ted Cruz Calls Congressional Hearing to Shame 'Supreme Court Activism'

Republican presidential hopeful and Advocate's Phobie of the Year, Ted Cruz, is no fan of marriage equality.

But this week in Washington, the Texas Senator gravely expressed just how deeply offended he is by the freedom to marry in a special hearing he convened before the Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on oversight, of which he is chairman, reports the Dallas Morning News. The Wednesday hearing was titled "With Prejudice: Supreme Court Activism and Possible Solutions."

"It is with deep disappointment that I convene this hearing. I have long admired and even revered the United States Supreme Court," said a somber Cruz in his opening statements. He continued:

"Much to my great disappointment, this past term, the court crossed a line. Continued its long descent into lawlessness; To a level that I believe demands action. The court today is not a body of jurists. It is not a body of judges following the law, but rather it has declared itself, in effect, a super-legislature. ...

"Justice Scalia powerfully wrote in his dissent that the decisions in this term are a fundamental threat to our democracy. That five unelected judges have declared themselves the rulers of 320 million Americans."

As examples of "the court's imperial tendencies," Cruz pointed to the 1857 Dred Scott decision, and 1973's Roe v. Wade, which found that African-Americans were not full citizens of the U.S., and legalized nationwide access to safe abortion, respectively. Both of those decisions, Cruz posited, were "horrific, contorted" interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.

And the Supreme Court's June decision bringing marriage equality to all 50 states falls squarely in this sordid history, Cruz contends.

"To anyone actually interpreting constitutional text, none of these rights have any basis in the language of the Constitution that governs this nation," he said. "Indeed, the right to an abortion that these unelected lawyers invented in 1973, found its basis in, and I quote, 'penumbras formed by emanations,' from other rights enumerated in the Constitution."

Cruz went on to repeat questionable allegations from conservative "reporters" that purport to show senior officials of Planned Parenthood agreeing to sell the "thing body parts of unborn children" as Cruz described.

After another several moments bemoaning the Supreme Court's "legislating from the bench" about the Affordable Care Act -- which Cruz calls "Obamacare" with a sneer in his voice -- he turns his attention to the recent landmark ruling in favor of marriage equality.

"Five unelected judges declared that the marriage laws of all 50 states were now, somehow, transformed into being unconstitutional," he warned. "That now, somewhere in the Constitution is a right to same-sex marriage. ... The premise of the Court's decision is the rather ridiculous notion that the American people, when they ratified the 14th Amendment in 1868, were somehow silently and unbeknownst to themselves, striking down the marriage laws of every state in the union and decreeing same-sex marriage."

"That's not law, that's not judging," Cruz continued. "That's policy-making."

"The reason we needed a lawsuit is precisely because the American people, when given the chance to vote, have not voted for this," claimed Cruz, despite the fact that voters in Washington, Maine, and Maryland have indeed approved marriage equality at the ballot box since 2012. That same year, voters in Minnesota became the first in the nation to vote down a proposed constitional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless, Cruz doubled down on his claim that "five unelected judges" deciding whether legislation violates the U.S. Constitution is "the very definition of tyranny."

"Hence this hearing: to discuss what options the American people have to reign in judicial tyranny," said Cruz, explaining the purpose of the hearing more than 11 minutes into his remarks.

He went on to cite a Fox News poll that claimed 72 percent of registered voters "agreed that Supreme Court justices should only serve for a limited time. And 62 percent think that Americans should be able to vote justices off the Supreme Court."

"In light of the lawlessness and judicial tyranny, I support all of the above," Cruz concluded.

Once the hearing was underway, two of the three witnesses Cruz called to discuss possible "solutions" to this so-called judicial tyranny were right-wing lawyers who support Cruz's antigay stances, notes the Morning News. Chapman University professor John Eastman has argued on behalf of several states attempting to uphold constitutional bans on marriage equality, and is a chairman for the virulently antigay National Organization for Marriage.

The second witness -- and the only one to disagree with Cruz's antigay hyperbole -- was Duke Law professor Neil Siegel, who told Cruz his pitch to subject Supreme Court justices to retention elections would undermine the Constitution. "On a constitutional Richter scale," Siegel said according to the Morning News, "retention elections would score about the same as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's infamous and failed court-packing plan and may be even more harmful to judicial independence."

Listen to Cruz's doomsday opening statements below.