While speaking at a “God Calling” event hosted by the Greater Orlando Tea Party back in September, Sen. Ted Cruz’s father and adviser Rafael Cruz warned that “wicked” elected officials in government are bent on “legislating their immorality and cramming it down our throats.”

Cruz said during the question and answer session of the event that advances in marriage equality and abortion rights are the fault of conservative Christians who didn’t get involved in politics. However, Cruz said, Christians who believe in the “social gospel” are wrong to get involved in politics since they don’t espouse right-wing ideas and even back the “delusion” of marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Responding to a question about how pastors should speak about marriage equality, he said that church leaders need to talk about the issue even if their views upset people. In the same way, he said, church leaders should speak out strongly against legal abortion despite “the fear that there is going to be a young lady in the congregation who has had an abortion and she is going to be offended.”

“But you see, the opposite is true, because that young lady who has had an abortion has something eating at her heart continuously and she needs healing for what’s troubling her heart. The best thing you can do is talk about it and offer counseling and restoration and healing and forgiveness,” he said. “We cannot just hide it, we need to address it not only to be able to bring healing to those that are scarred by it but also to prevent others to fall in the same pit.”

Cruz then waded into how churches should take a firm stance against pornography, which he said is at least partly responsible for “the great majority” of sexual assaults.