Texas Senator Ted Cruz recently defended his critique of Uganda’s anti-homosexual law that calls for the death penalty for individuals engaging in certain degenerate activities.
Cruz specifically defended himself from attacks coming from Florida Pastor Tom Ascol. Ascol is the president of the religious organizations Founders Ministries and The Institute of Public Theology.
There has been bipartisan criticism of the law that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni recently signed. The law pushes for the execution of individuals guilty of “aggravated homosexuality,” which is defined as homosexual acts performed by individuals who have HIV or performed with children, disabled people or individuals who were drugged.
Cruz was one of several prominent elected officials to criticize the law, declaring in a tweet that it is “horrific & wrong” and urging “all civilized nations” to criticize what he believes is a human rights abuse.
The whole controversy started after Ascol responded to Cruz’s post the following day. Ascol alluded to a passage from the book of Leviticus in the Bible that says “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death.”
“Was this law God gave to His old covenant people ‘horrific and wrong’?” Ascol said in a tweet.
Cruz responded on Twitter on June 4 that he does not know Ascol and has respect for his ministry, but stressed that his analysis of the Bible is wrong. He alluded to a teaching from Jesus that called for mankind’s laws to be separate from God’s laws.
“We are talking the laws of man, not the Old Testament laws of God. Do you really believe that the US govt should execute every person who is gay??” he stated.
Furthermore, Cruz cited other biblical passages that he contended refuted Ascol’s analysis.
“Leviticus also tells us: ‘For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.’ Should the govt execute every child who’s disrespectful to his parents? That ignores Grace & the New Testament. As our Savior taught us, ‘Let he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,’” the Senator added.
The Founders Ministries’ Twitter account responded to Cruz’s post by posting a video in which Ascol built upon his initial tweet response to Cruz.
In the video, Ascol stressed that he is not calling for the death penalty for homosexual and lesbian individuals, only contending that Cruz’s judgment is a “judgment against God” that criticized what God said to the people.
“The problem I have here is, Ted Cruz, a professed Christian, saying that what God did was an abomination, horrific and wrong. It can’t be those things if God prescribed it for his old covenant people,” Ascol said.
“If you got any Bible verses that embarrass you, you got a real problem with God,” he continued.
It’s none of the US’s concern whether or not Uganda has bad laws concerning homosexuality. National sovereignty should be respected no matter how controversial a country’s domestic policies are. The US has no business trying to remake the rest of the world in its own image when it has grown so dysfunctional.