During an April speech at Easley First Wesleyan Church in Easley, South Carolina, Rafael Cruz said that while the unlimited right to bear arms is God-ordained, allowing gay people to marry will destroy freedom and turn us all into “slaves.”

“We do not get the right to bear arms from the Second Amendment… the Second Amendment assumes you already have that right because that right is intrinsic in our unalienable right to life,” he said. “You see, if you have an unalienable right to life, you also have the right to protect that life and protect the life of your loved ones. So the attack on the Second Amendment ultimately goes to the unalienable right to life.”

Not so with gay marriage, Cruz said, which is not a right but an attack on freedom.

The gay marriage case at the Supreme Court, he claimed, “is not about homosexual marriage, it’s about religious freedom. Because if the Court rules that homosexual marriage is a right, mark my words, the next thing will be going to a church and saying ‘you must perform homosexual marriage, or we’ll put you in jail’ or ‘you must hire a homosexual pastor, or we’ll put you in jail.’”

Cruz added that marriage isn’t necessary for gay and lesbian couples since civil unions — which his son has fought against — are legal in a number of places.

This attack on religion, concluded Cruz, is an attack on the liberty of conservative Christians and “of course, if you don’t have liberty, you’re a slave and if you’re a slave, you can’t pursue happiness.”