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Many Republican presidential candidates are shying away from discussing their opposition to same-sex marriage — but that isn’t the case for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

In a speech before the Faith and Freedom Coalition “Road to Majority” Conference in D.C. on Thursday, Cruz focused on what he characterized as an assault on religious liberty and distorted incidents involving same-sex marriage as examples of potential violations of this principle.

“In fact, just this week, I think the EPA has named religious liberty as an endangered species,” Cruz joked. “That would be funnier if it weren’t so profoundly true.”

Ahead of an expected ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that could establish a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry across the country, Cruz asked the audience to say a prayer to justices “that they not engage in an act of naked and lawless judicial activism tearing down marriage laws adopted pursuant to the Constitution.”

Recalling the advancement this year in Indiana and Arkansas of religious freedom measures seen to enable anti-LGBT discrimination before they were scaled back, Cruz said “hearts broke” in those states and the “battle over religious liberty there was heartbreaking.”

Cruz attributed controversy over the bills — which in Indiana has caused Gov. Mike Pence to lose support and face a potential Republican challenger in his primary — to a “perfect storm” of big business and the Democratic Party coming together against them.

“The modern Democratic Party has decided that their commitment to mandatory gay marriage in all 50 states trumps any willingness to defend the First Amendment,” Cruz said.

Cruz lamented that times aren’t what they once were “when religious liberty brought us together,” saying the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) backed a federal religious freedom bill that was signed by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, but now similar measures were thrown out in Indiana and Arkansas.

It should be noted the initial state measures in Arkansas and Indiana were broader than the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was an effort to protect the liberty of religious minorities based on actions that could be taken by the federal government. Unlike the federal law, the state measures enabled businesses and organizations to have a religious belief and allowed for an individual to obtain an exemption under the law when the opposing party isn’t just the government, but another private individual.

While Cruz didn’t mention any names, he said Indiana was a “time of choosing” and accused other Republican presidential candidates of saying nothing about religious liberty, adding, “I will never, ever, ever shy from standing up for religious liberty for every American.”

Also during his speech, Cruz brought up the story of Betty and Richard Odgaard of Iowa, who are Mennonites and once rented an art gallery that once housed a Lutheran Church for weddings and other parties. However, they faced a lawsuit after they refused service to a gay male couple in violation of the state non-discrimination law.

According to the Des Moines Register, the business voluntarily settled the case for $5,000, agreed not to discriminate in the future, but then elected on their own accord to stop renting the space for all weddings.

But in Cruz’s account of the story, the building isn’t a former church, but a current church, and another example of an infringement of religious liberty in the country.

“The Odgaards found themselves drawn into litigation, an extended legal battle,” Cruz said. “Ultimately, they wrote a check for $5,000 and promised never again to host a wedding in that church. Religious liberty is under assault.”

For another example, Cruz cited an exchange between U.S. Associate Justice Samuel Alito and U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli during oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. According to Cruz, when Alito asked if the next step after a ruling in favor of same-sex marriage would be the Internal Revenue Service going after Christian and other religious entities, Verrili said that could indeed be the case.

“The answer from the Obama administration to the U.S. Supreme Court is yes, that is a very real possibility that the next step is the IRS going after schools and persons and charities,” Cruz said.

In truth, Alito was asking whether the loss of tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University for opposing same-sex marriage would apply to a college if the court were to rule for same-sex marriage. Verrilli didn’t deny during oral arguments that would be an issue, but also said, “I don’t think I can answer that question without knowing more specifics.”

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in the case of Bob Jones University v. United States the First Amendment doesn’t prohibit the IRS from revoking the tax-exempt status of a religious university if its practices are contrary to a compelling government public policy, such as eradicating racial discrimination.

The solicitor general just finished making the point that these cases may come to the Supreme Court no matter what it rules on same-sex marriage because they’re a consequences of non-discrimination laws, not the right to marry, and commitment ceremonies will happen even if the government doesn’t recognize same-sex unions.

Rose Saxe, a staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project, said Cruz was distorting the facts during his speech to inflame his audience.

“These kinds of misleading suggestions that religious liberty is under attack, such as saying that churches will be sued for not marrying gay couples or that the IRS will begin investigating Christian schools, wrongly pit religious liberty against equal treatment,” Saxe said. “We’ve seen based on the experience of states throughout the country that religious freedom does not suffer when gay couples can marry. These kinds of scare tactics are intended to inflame concerns, as we near a time when same-sex couples may soon be able to marry nationwide.”