Laura Cavanaugh/FilmMagic(DES MOINES, Iowa) — While Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was grilling pork chops at the Iowa State Fair Friday, actress Ellen Page, wearing a hat and sunglasses, snuck her way up to the grill and asked the GOP presidential candidate about “the persecution of gays in the workplace and LGBT rights.”
ABC News caught the exchange.
“What about the question about LGBT people being fired for being gay-trans?” Page asked.
“Well, what we’re seeing right now, we’re seeing Bible-believing Christians being persecuted for living according to their faith,” Cruz responded.
“You’re discriminating against LGBT people,” Page said. “Well, would you use that argument in segregation?”
“Now I’m happy to answer your question, but not to have a back-and-forth debate,” Cruz said.
Cruz went on to argue that “no one has the right to force someone else to abandon their faith and their conscience.”
“Imagine, hypothetically, you had a gay florist and imagine two evangelicals wanted to get married and they decide, ‘You know what, I disagree with your faith and I don’t want to provide flowers,’” Cruz posed to Page.
The two spoke for over five minutes. After, ABC News asked Cruz whether he knew it was Page and he said no. He described the conversation to ABC as being about religious liberty.
Page, 28, is set to star in the film Freehold, co-starring Julianne Moore, about a police officer and her partner’s legal battle to get her pension benefits after she’s diagnosed with cancer. Page came out as gay on Valentine’s Day last year.
On Twitter, Page has posted some tweets in the past about Cruz ranging from attacking Cruz on health care to tweeting she wants his coloring book.
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