Sen. Ted Cruz’s father warns Fresno churchgoers that conservative values are under attack

The father of Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz told Fresno residents on Friday night to “come out” from behind the pulpit and cast a righteous vote in the presidential primary in June.

Evangelical pastor Rafael Cruz gave a sermon to about 300 people at the Cornerstone Church Conference Center in downtown Fresno, urging churchgoers to stand up for their conservative values when voting.

Cruz said that with the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, conservative values are at extreme risk of being rejected.

“One more liberal justice on that court, and our religious liberties will all go down the drain,” Cruz said. “Abortion on demand until the day of delivery will become the law of the land, and the traditional family as we know it today will cease to exist.”

Another point central to Cruz’s sermon was the move toward gender-neutral bathrooms.

“On any particular day, depending upon how you (feel), you could walk into any bathroom you want,” Cruz said. “It is opening the door to all kinds of sexual perverts to try to assault women. Do you know that there are high schools now proposing that the young boys in high school go shower with the girls?”

His comments prompted verbal unrest among many attending the service.

Cruz said that God should rule over government, and not the other way around.

“Caesar has no rule over the pulpit,” he said.

Cruz urged the congregation to vote for his son and denounced Ted Cruz’s biggest opponent in the Republican primary, Donald Trump.

“Trump hit a nerve by appealing to people’s anger. People are frustrated, and rightly so because America has been on a downward spiral for a long time,” Cruz said. “So Trump has been fueling that frustration and that anger. The problem is (that) Trump has no solutions. He’s just hot air. People are being swayed by theater and emotionalism and empty promises and rhetoric.”

He appealed to the group to see through Trump’s bluster.

“That’s why I say – instead of listening to the rhetoric, look at the record. The thing that scares me the most about Donald Trump is something that he said one time in one of the debates: ‘Oh I can change. I change all the time. I change to anything I want. I can change in a minute.’ That’s pretty scary.”

Cornerstone pastor Jim Franklin publicly endorsed Ted Cruz for president before the sermon, but he said afterward that people have to make their own decisions.

“I don’t tell people from the pulpit who to vote for. That’s their job; they’ll decide that,” Franklin said. “I’m not against other candidates. I just think that (Cruz) will be the best for us. He was a statesman, he understands our constitution, I believe that the principles he’s set forth – he will be our best choice.”

Franklin said that young voters need to engage in the process.

“Don’t listen to the rhetoric; don’t listen to the sound bites. Do your homework,” Franklin said. “Everything you read on the Internet isn’t right. Get a book out – look at our past, look at our history, and then use that as a guidepost to our future.”

Franklin said that he hopes to get Ted Cruz out to Cornerstone before the June 7 primary.

“He has an open invitation,” he said.

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 10:41 PM with the headline "Sen. Ted Cruz’s father warns Fresno churchgoers that conservative values are under attack."