Story highlights Ted Cruz cited religious liberty and states' rights when asked how he would protect same-sex couples

Cruz said legal issues about marriage should be decided at a state level

(CNN) Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz cited religious liberty and states' rights when asked by a gay Republican Monday what he would do as president to protect same-sex couples.

"What would you as President do to protect me and my husband from that institutionalized discrimination?" Todd Calogne, a New York Republican, asked Cruz during a town hall hosted by ABC's "Good Morning America."

Cruz said religious liberty laws protect everyone.

"When it comes to religious liberty, religious liberty is something that protects everyone," he said. "It is our very first amendment, very first phrase that is protected in the Bill of Rights."

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