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It’s hard not to feel sympathy for Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, the gay businessmen who invited a dozen people to dine with Senator Ted Cruz, the presidential poser, at their New York home. Mr. Reisner and Mr. Weiderpass had evident good intentions. There is certainly a shortage in this country of sensible political communication.

It is, however, equally hard to understand what on earth they thought they were doing. There is not a Republican on the national scene who supports the right of Americans to marry whomever they choose. Very few of them truly believe in protecting the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans at all. And Mr. Cruz dwells on the far side of right-wing crazy on most issues, including this one.

Mr. Reisner later said that Mr. Cruz did not voice explicit opposition to same-sex marriage at the dinner, but rather said that the matter should be left to the states. What right-wing Republicans mean is that states should be allowed to ban same-sex marriage at will. When that fails, they should permit business owners to discriminate against same-sex couples because they don’t approve of them.

Mr. Cruz later said that he told the dinner that he has strong religious objections to same-sex marriage, and Mr. Reisner has been publicly apologizing for showing “poor judgment.”

Writing on Facebook after he and Mr. Weiderpass had been heavily criticized — and targeted by boycott calls and a threatened protest at the hotel the two men jointly own — Mr. Reisner said:

“I was ignorant, naïve and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruz at my home without taking the time to completely understand all of his positions on gay rights. I’ve spent the past 24 hours reviewing videos of Cruz’s statements on gay marriage and I am shocked and angry. I sincerely apologize for hurting the gay community and so many of our friends, family, allies, customers and employees. I will try my best to make up for my poor judgment. Again, I am deeply sorry.”

Again, I feel for Mr. Reisner, but didn’t he have Internet access? Mr. Cruz has made his disapproval of same-sex marriage completely clear. He’s even sponsored legislation to help states preserve their unconstitutional bans on such marriages.

According to Mr. Reisner, Mr. Cruz told the dinner that he would love his daughter “just as much” if she were a lesbian. That’s the current Republican formula for fake tolerance, a rewrite of the older line, “some of my best friends are Jewish.”

What if my daughter were gay? Or your daughter? Or anyone’s son? Or sister or brother or mother or father? Would Mr. Cruz be O.K. with that? And would his hypothetical tolerance of his daughter extend to her right to get married? Apparently not.