Ted Cruz has recently boasted of the endorsements he has received from an extremist anti-abortion activist and an anti-gay hate group leader, even courting the support of a radical pastor who backs the death penalty for unrepentant gays.

In a recent press release, Cruz announced the endorsements of a group of faith leaders, including Ron Baity, a pastor and head of the group Reclaim America.

Baity made his name with the campaign to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions in North Carolina, and Cruz recently joined Baity at a rally against marriage equality.

Cruz’s drive to cater to Baity is especially troubling considering that the pastor has likened gay people to “maggots” and “murderers,” endorsed laws prosecuting “sodomites” and urged gay people to “quit being homos.”

Gay people, according to Baity, want to “recruit young people to their perverted, warped agenda” and are bringing about the destruction of America. He has described homosexuality as rancid fruit “filled with wormholes and rotten cores” and a “darkened, twisted, immense depository of depravity.”

Baity has also alleged that God sent Ebola to America as punishment for the gay “lifestyle”: “You think Ebola is bad now, just wait. If it’s not that, it’s going to be something else.”

Again, this is a pastor whom Cruz wants on his “faith leaders” team.