TED CRUZ AT THE NORTH TEXAS PRESIDENTIAL FORUM - PRESTONWOOD BAPTIST CHURCH

TED CRUZ AT THE NORTH TEXAS PRESIDENTIAL FORUM - PRESTONWOOD BAPTIST CHURCH   Ted Cruz discusses homosexual marriage, religious liberty. It took Jimmy Carter, to give us Ronald Reagan.   Also interviewed by Dr. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, the 7th largest Baptist Church in the country.   Ted Cruz at Prestonwood Baptist Church 0:02 god bless the great state of Texas it is really good to be home 0:13 thrilled to be back at Prestonwood Baptist Church with so many dear friends thank you for 0:21 coming out today thank you for welcoming us all here thank you for this 0:25 tremendous gathering you know this morning at the pulpit Dr Grand may have 0:32 gone back to the original Greek looking at scripture if you look to the 0:39 etymology of the word politics there two parts 0:44 poly meaning many and text mining blood sucking pair of size 0:59 and that is a fairly accurate description of washington DC but you know 1:07 I'll tell you we r came out here this afternoon because I think we recognize 1:12 that our countries in crisis I don't believe this is a typical time in 1:18 politics a typical time in our country we are bankrupting our kids and 1:23 grandkids are constitutional rights are under assault each and every day and 1:32 Texans now it and america has receded from leadership in the world and it's 1:44 making the world a much more dangerous place and yet I'm here this afternoon 1:49 with a hope 1:50 word of hope and encouragement an exhortation let me tell you people are 1:54 waking up we are seeing an awakening we are seeing a spirit of revival across 2:01 this nation 2:07 there many things as taxes we can talk about today we could talk about bringing 2:12 back jobs and growth and opportunity we could talk about abolishing the IRS 2:20 we could talk about repealing Obamacare we could talk about standing unshakable 2:34 with our friend and ally the nation of Israel 2:56 but i wanna talk to something close to home I wanna talk about the threats to 3:02 religious liberty we're seeing in this country religious liberty is under 3:07 threat today like it never has been before in this nation and I've been 3:12 blessed to spend much of my adult life fighting to defend religious liberty 3:18 when I was the Solicitor General of Texas Greg Abbott 9 together we defended 3:28 the Ten Commandments monument on the state capitol grounds we went to the you 3:32 s Supreme Court and we 154 3:40 we defended the Pledge of Allegiance the words one nation under God when an 3:45 atheist filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down the pledge we went to the UE 3:50 Supreme Court and we won unanimous and I joined with our friend Kelly Shackelford 4:02 in representing over three million veterans pro bono for free 4:07 defending the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial 4:16 that was erected over 70 years ago to honor the men and women who gave their 4:23 lives in ww1 the ACLU filed a lawsuit seeking to tear it down the federal 4:30 district court order that veterans memorial torn to the ground it went up 4:35 on appeal the Federal Court of Appeals said you have to take the Veterans 4:38 Memorial down they actually ordered that the cross be covered with a giant FAQ 4:43 with a chain and padlock at the bottom and I'll say this the court was were 4:49 right in one regard the image of the Cross has power 5:01 we went to the UE Supreme Court on behalf of over 3 million veterans and we 5:06 154 upholding that memorial and these threats have only accelerated in a 5:20 little over a month ago I was proud to host a religious liberty rally in Iowa 5:24 win over 2,500 people come out in defense of religious liberty is the 5:30 single largest political event in Iowa this year you know the media diminished 5:35 threat to religious liberty they say it's not real they say it's made made up 5:38 don't worry about it we brought in nine heroes to simply tell their stories to 5:46 tell their stories directly from the stage in a typically a political event 5:51 the candidates front-and-center I'm very deliberately wanted to recede and have 5:56 each of those nine heroes tell their stories as a reason Jesus spoke in 6:02 parables what moves hard to tell what connects with who we are as people there 6:10 were people like Betty and Dick Odgaard a couple of gotta know very well dick and 6:13 Betty live in Grimes Iowa they own and historic Lutheran Church I started a 6:20 business hosting weddings wonderful weddings and they did the catering to do 6:25 the flowers and then a couple of years ago two men came in and they wanted to 6:32 get married in the old guard church now the old guards are devout mennonite so 6:39 they very polite flea they very respectfully said listen we cannot 6:42 celebrate and hoster wedding it is contrary to our faith the next day 6:49 Dick and Betty they spent 18 months in litigation they paid over five 6:55 thousand dollars to settle the suit they promise never again to host another 6:59 wedding in August Dick and Betty he went bankrupt they laid off all their 7:06 employees this month they're auctioning off all of the property in the church 7:13 a person who talked to the rally was Kelvin Cochran an african-american grew 7:20 up in an inner-city a difficult home his whole life you want to be a fire and he 7:26 achieved his dream he became a fireman he rose to become the chief of the fire 7:31 department in Atlanta he then went to Washington President Obama pointed him 7:34 to a national fire board he moved to Washington served in the Obama 7:38 administration and he came back to a LAN and resumed his role as chief of the 7:43 fire department their chief Cochran was also a Sunday school teacher and in 7:49 teaching Sunday school he began teaching at the book of Genesis and particularly 7:53 started focusing on the passage where God asked Adam and Eve who told you you 7:58 were naked and it began thinking about what the word naked means not simply 8:03 without clothes but without the covering of God's love God's redemption and he 8:10 contrasted it all the places in the script sure where it talks about being 8:14 clothed in righteousness closed in jesus' redeeming blood and end up 8:20 writing a book based on a Sunday School teachings called who told you you were 8:25 naked and in that book about a page and a half of that book discusses human 8:31 sexuality and what scripture says about that 8:35 chief Cochran was fired for his job for writing that book it is private time as 8:43 a Sunday school teacher for writing a book about what the Bible teaches he was 8:47 told you cannot be the fire chief of the city of Atlanta I gotta tell you the 8:53 entire event was three hours 2,500 people nobody left it was I would 8:59 encourage we have the whole thing online at Ted Cruz dot org I would encourage 9:03 you to watch it it will lift your spirits to hear these stories are 9:08 ordinary people a fireman a florist a baker a t-shirt maker ordinary people 9:17 lose faith faith was tested who stood up and stood with God I believe 2016 is 9:25 going to be a religious liberty election 9:36 and for anyone who thinks well these are distant threat to these don't impact me 9:40 at the supreme court's gay marriage oral argument last year 9:48 Justice Alito asked the Obama Justice Department if your position prevails 9:52 will the next step be four the Obama IRS to go after Christian universities that 10:01 follow a biblical teaching of marriage and by extension Christian grade schools 10:07 like the school here at Preston or charities the answer from the Obama 10:14 Justice Department is yes that is a very real possibility the IRS targeting those 10:21 who follow a biblical teaching of marriage that is wrong it is not who we 10:27 are but let me give you a word of encouragement as these threats grow 10:33 darker and darker and darker they are waking people up here in Texas and all 10:39 across this country I believe 2016 will be an election like 1980 10:57 and it took jimmy carter to give us Ronald Reagan 11:07 so i cant wait to see where we're headed next 11:10 thank you 11:26 my goodness you know how to fire people up 11:32 well Dr Grand you can understand it's even worse i'ma PK preachers kid I know 11:40 that and my goodness you and i sat down with your beautiful wife Heidi back in 11:48 June and a lot has happened in the last five months and you you talked about 11:54 your vision and your dream and what God put in your heart and we're already 11:59 seeing so much of that happen and the Lord seems to be elevated you and giving 12:04 you favor with people in here certainly here in Texas your back home and we're 12:11 really glad that you are 12:15 on the religious freedom 12:19 one of our concerns obviously is judicial activist and I know this is 12:24 something that I you've talked about you're concerned about is well judges 12:29 who seem to be making all rather than interpreting how do you view this and 12:35 and how can we if you are present that what kind of judges would you appoint in 12:41 particular Supreme Court justices we know elections matter is we talked about 12:45 already in this is one of the big ways that election matter but do we have a 12:48 problem with judicial activism in this country it is an enormous problem and it 12:53 is growing 12:54 if you look at in June the course of 24 hours we had two decisions that were 12:59 both utterly lawless first the Supreme Court a handful of unelected judges 13:05 rewrote the text of Obamacare ignored the federal statute to force that failed 13:09 lawn millions of Americans twenty-four hours later five unelected judges 13:14 reported to tear down the marriage laws of all fifty states both of those 13:19 decisions were lawless they were judicial activism there's not a word in 13:23 the constitution that supports them 13:33 and you know dr. Graham this is an issue that really separates a number of the 13:38 candidates running on the republican side in 2016 several of the republican 13:42 candidates when the marriage decision came out put out statements that 13:46 effectively said it settled it's the law of the land we need to accept its 13:50 surrender and move on those are word-for-word the talking points of 13:56 President Obama I can tell you I for one do not accept it I'm not willing to 14:01 surrender and I'm not willing to give up on the constant 14:21 Dr Graham you asked about judicial appointments if you look at the court 14:26 almost every democratic appointee on every big picture case big issue case 14:31 votes a hundred percent the way the liberals want republicans we bad about 14:35 500 many of the most egregious judicial activist Earl Warren William Brennan 14:41 John Paul Stevens David Souter harry blackmun who authored roe versus wade 14:46 every one of those were republican appointees and the problem with we run 14:51 into the same problem over and over again you know the last debate I talked 14:54 about two moments in time 14:56 number one in 1991 George Herbert Walker Bush had in one room 15:02 David's to turn in another room Edith Jones the rock-ribbed conservative on 15:06 the 5th Circuit federal court of appeals and Bush 41 went with souter and then in 15:11 2005 George W Bush had a similar choice said John Roberts in one room and had my 15:17 former boss Mike looting the rock-ribbed conservative in the 4th Circuit Court of 15:20 Appeals in the other room and George W Bush went with drop now in both 15:26 instances it wasn't that the president bush's wanted to put a liberal on the 15:30 court they didn't want that but with Edith Jones and Mike looting they had 15:35 spent over a decade each on the court being a principled jurist following the 15:41 constitution if you nominated them you would have a fight if you nominated them 15:45 Democrats would go nuts because they'd understand Mike looting was Antonin 15:49 Scalia's first law clerks they know exactly what they're gonna get and with 15:53 David Souter and John Roberts the advantage was they had said very little 15:57 they had no paper trail and every single time we've gone with a judicial nominee 16:03 who doesn't have a paper trail it's turned into an utter disaster so in the 16:08 republican field 16:15 in the republican field every one of the candidates will sit down with you and 16:20 tell you I will appoint strict constructionist who will follow the 16:23 constitution and not legislate from the bench those of the talking points every 16:26 candidate says the differences who's willing to actually spend the camp and 16:33 fight to do what they said I have spent my entire adult life fighting judicial 16:39 activism there are few if any choices 16:48 so many people are upset about is sending people to Washington who don't 16:56 get things done who say one thing and end up doing nothing and one of the 17:03 things that we have appreciate about you is your willingness to go and stand on 17:07 your principles and even when you are criticized for you then uncompromising 17:25 when people talk about being an outsider and at the same time you are a senator 17:32 and a very good one how do you how does that work for you in that you've been 17:38 going up against sometimes I'm sure it's like hitting your head against iraq how 17:42 have you been able to manage this and and as president 17:45 how can you affect change in this way so it is a great question you know I'm very 17:53 encouraged but we're see eg if you look at that the republican presidential 17:57 primary I think one of the most tremendously helpful things to my 18:00 campaign has been Donald Trump's candidates 18:06 for one thing it certainly made it interesting 18:09 but you know donald his really frame the central issue in this primary as who 18:15 will stand up to Washington now that's the central issue the natural next 18:20 question is OK 18:22 who actually has stood up to Washington 18:32 and I think the better question to decide this race because in that regard 18:37 my record is markedly different from that of anyone else on that stage 18:47 couple of examples in 2013 when when millions of Americans rose up against 18:53 the disaster that is Obamacare I was proud to lead that fight you look to the 18:59 other 10 Republican standing on that debate stage and then the question 19:02 naturally arises where where they look to 2014 when millions of Americans rose 19:09 up against President Obama's illegal executive analyst once again I was proud 19:15 to lead that fight and once again you look to the other very fun men and women 19:19 on that stage and you ask where were they 19:22 and and here you don't have to go back to 2013 or 2014 in go back to a couple 19:28 of weeks ago 19:29 you know Dr Grand you remember that debate in California just about every 19:32 Republican looked in the TV camera and said we should defund Planned Parenthood 19:37 well it's easy to say that just two weeks ago we had a knock-down drag-out 19:43 fight in Washington millions of Americans rose up against against 19:47 Planned Parenthood pastors all over the country lit up the phones I was proud to 19:53 lead the fight against Planned Parenthood you look to the other folks 20:07 everyone who spoke so passionately the debate my natural question is where 20:12 worth it can you imagine how different it would have been if 11 republican 20:17 presidential candidates descended on Washington and spoken unison and said 20:22 Mitch McConnell and John Boehner don't send five hundred million dollars of 20:26 taxpayer money 20:44 courage we like that like courage ok in the last presidential election 20:53 evangelical Christians did not vote yes I've heard all kinds of numbers may be 21:00 up to eight million for whatever reason set out not inspired maybe a little bit 21:06 of Washington fatigue politie little fatigued whatever I do say it's that 21:11 people are fired up now 21:13 yes and that we're ready to do a lot better and while some one has suggested 21:18 evangelical Christians are splintering and that we're really not that committed 21:22 and so on 21:23 what what do you say about that and and do you believe Christians members of 21:29 churches should engage in the political process 21:33 talk to us a little bit about citizenship and our responsibility as 21:37 you view it to to get to the polls to get involved in the process 21:42 well Dr Grand I think it is absolutely vital I think the entire election turned 21:46 on that question you know many of the folks here know my father pastor Raphael 21:56 for those who do you know that I am the shy soft-spoken one in the family is 22:02 true but as you know my father has has a real calling to other pastors and and 22:10 several years ago God really put a burden on his heart that no one bears 22:17 greater responsibility for where this country is today than the pastors and 22:22 it's it's a hard message was not an easy message to hear to deliver but he 22:26 travels and speaks of pastors conference is all over the country and then the 22:29 message my dad says he says you know if the flock stumbles into a ditch you 22:35 don't blame the sheet you blame the shepherd and they're too many pastors 22:41 unfortunate as my father says who hide behind the popular don't do what you're 22:47 doing now which is standing up and encouraging the body of Christ we have a 22:50 responsibility 23:09 you know the census data show there about ninety million evangelicals and 23:13 evangelical Christians in America in the 2012 election 54 million evangelicals 23:21 didn't it's a majority of the evangelical Christians its believers are 23:28 staying home if we are allowing our leaders to be elected by non-believers 23:34 is it any wonder we have a federal government that is assaulting life and 23:38 marriage and religious 23:47 healthcare the Affordable Care Act was supposed to make health care more 23:54 accessible at a lower cost 23:56 how's that working out how do you propose to fix it 24:02 let me start it is a disaster 24:05 it is a train wreck and we should repeal every word of it 24:19 for that to happen Washington doesn't want to do that you know I wrote a book 24:28 a couple of months ago called the time for truth where where I talked about 24:31 what I call the Washington cartel career politicians in both parties who get in 24:36 bed with lobbyists and special interests can grow and grow grow government 24:39 Washington does not want to repeal Obamacare the only way to do it is to 24:48 make this election a referendum on repealing Obamacare 24:58 think of the 1980 election I often invoke the 1980 election I think we are 25:05 reliving history in powerful ways can you imagine ronald reagan if he had come 25:13 in to this church in 1979 and if he had said dr. Graham we're gonna cut the top 25:18 marginal tax rate from seventy percent to 28 percent we're gonna go from 25:24 stagnant economic growth to booming growth millions lifted into prosperity 25:28 are hostages will be released from ER on the day I'm sworn into office and within 25:35 10 years will win the cold war and terror the Berlin wall to the graft we 25:41 would have all dismissed him as a nut case because under no reasonable 25:48 assessment of Washington was that possible what reagan did in nineteen 25:51 eighty is he made it a referendum the reagan revolution change the incentives 25:57 in Washington he cut that tax rate from 17 to 28 percent and he did it with tip 26:01 o'neill a democrat as speaker of the house 26:11 in the reason is simple there's an old joke that politics is hollywood ugly 26:16 people 26:20 which my wife detailed map resemble that remark but but the way you get things 26:27 done the way you repeal Obamacare and pass commonsense health care reform as 26:31 you change the incentives so that if you come out of November 2016 with a mandate 26:36 from the people that's what causes Republicans and Democrats to say I am 26:41 standing in the way of that and that's how we turn around 26:52 my reagan impersonation there you go again 27:02 you know ronald reagan came to this city I guess it was 1979 and he said to a 27:14 group of evangelicals James Robertson was their part of gathering that group 27:20 he said look I know you can endorse me but I can endorse you a man and we're so 27:25 thankful for your endorsement of values that you hold yourself and of the values 27:32 that we share so one final question is how did your faith your personal faith 27:39 strength in your life where you get discouraged and this fire this passion 27:43 that you have welcomed in my faith is is an integral part of who I am you know 27:50 often on the trail I'll share my testimony and you know for me my 27:56 testimony begins actually when I was very young child with my parents for 28:01 those of you all that my dad now you didn't know him when he was young man 28:05 when I was two and three years old my parents neither one of them were 28:09 Christians they were living up in Calgary and both of them drank too much 28:16 and when I was three my dad left he decided he didn't want to be married 28:23 anymore he didn't want to be a father to a three-year-old son and I got on a 28:27 plane and flew down to Houston and he was there a couple of months and a 28:32 colleague from the oil and gas business invited my dad to a Bible study and it 28:38 was at the home of a local life insurance agent for whatever reason my 28:41 father with and and he described being struck by the piece he saw that Bible 28:48 state member there was one woman who talked about that her son would beat her 28:54 to get money for drugs and yet she had what scripture calls the peace that 29:00 passes understand and my father couldn't understand it didn't make sense to him 29:05 but he knew we didn't have it knew we wanted and that night at the end of the 29:09 Bible study they said well I'll tell you what our pastors coming tomorrow night 29:12 as he had a lot of questions why don't you come tomorrow 29:14 you can talk with our past we came back the next night he stayed three four five 29:20 hours till late in the night 29:21 argue my father was convinced he was an atheist he was convinced he knew this 29:26 got stuff was all cooling and he could disprove any went through question after 29:31 question after question and at the end of the night he said alright what about 29:37 the man in tibet who's never heard of Jesus and the pastor very wisely didn't 29:43 take the bait and he said Raphael I don't know about the man into bed but 29:50 you've heard Jesus what's your excuse 30:03 that hit my dad like a ton of bricks and he fell to his knees he gave his life to 30:08 Jesus he went got in the car drove to the airport by the plane ticket and flew 30:14 back to Calgary to be with my mother and me so when people ask about the role of 30:18 faith I can tell you in my life if it were not for the redemptive love of 30:23 Jesus Christ I would have been raised by a single mom without my dad now and and 30:28 I'll tell you just a rare and incredible epilogue so I I became a Christian when 30:33 I was 8 at that same church clay Road Baptist Church galen while it was the 30:38 pastor let my dad lord baptized me and a couple of months ago on the campaign 30:42 trail I was in Tennessee and it so happened at the Galen while he had which 30:47 has retired to Tennessee and he came out to the rally and and I had not seen him 30:52 in 35 years I was 10 years old when I last saw and I have to tell you it was a 30:58 powerful I I choked up to have the opportunity opportunity just a hug 31:04 brother while and say thank you if you hadn't shared the gospel with my dad my 31:10 entire life and my family's life would have been different if the power of God 31:25 so now we know the rest of the story of how your character has been formed how 31:29 can we pray for you and your family you know I'd say three things peace and 31:37 wisdom but then also especially if you would pray for our girls you know our 31:43 girls Carolina and Catherine they're here somewhere there were here there's 31:48 Heidi Heidi crews 31:56 Carolina Cruz stand up stand up I love 32:10 so they're seven and for their the joys of our life but I will tell you the 32:14 hardest part of this campaign is is being on the road being you know this is 32:19 this week I've been in Dec Iowa Houston California New Hampshire here and headed 32:26 to Austin San Antonio and back to Dec so the girls drove up to be with us for a 32:32 couple of hours and two girls that are seven and four it is hard on them and so 32:40 that I would be the prayers that they know they are loved with all of our 32:45 hearts and loved by God as well how would you like to tell ya 33:09 thank you for your service thank you for your sacrifice