The Patriot Post® · Ted Cruz, Hollywood and Faith
Like clockwork, political campaigns degrade to low-rung rhetoric for some candidates. They also bring old acquaintances out of the woodwork who didn’t like you then and don’t like you now.
Such is the reported case for Conservative presidential candidate Ted Cruz and a film writer in Hollywood. Conflicts in principles and ideas appear immediately apparent in any sentence that mentions Conservative and Hollywood. The Senator and the writer, Craig Mazin, have a very brief history. They were reportedly in the same dorm at Princeton during Freshman year. Mazin has been dogging Ted Cruz with attacks that surfaced nationally during the Conservative’s 2012 run for the Senate.
A skilled trash-talker who weaponizes Twitter, screenwriter Mazin resorts to schoolyard taunts and name-calling worthy of a bully who enjoys attacking someone who rises above the ugly fray and chooses to walk away. Say, a Christian, perhaps. In a less profanity tinged missive about Cruz, Mazin recently tweeted: “Getting emails blaming me for not smothering Ted Cruz in his sleep in 1988. What kind of monster do you think I am? A really prescient one?”
What is really going on here? What would possess an adult film writer to resort to the pettiness and mean-spirited jargon of a pubescent adolescent? What could a Hollywood screenwriter have against a Senator who runs for office in the defense of faith, freedom and patriotism? The question likely answers itself.
Assuming that Mazin is for freedom and patriotism, possibly it is the issue of faith that so sticks in his craw. It is well reported that the young Ted Cruz was principled in prayer in his college days. Senator Ted Cruz hides his Christianity from no one. It is safe to say that his faith is an irritant at best for a writer of scripts that the Motion Picture Rating (MPAA) assigns an R-Rating for “graphic nudity, violent images and drug use.” It can be said for Mr. Mazin that he stands by his “graphic nudity, violent images and drug use” in his films and his juvenile, low-grade tweets.
There are others with differing opinions. Famed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz (a renowned Liberal) calls Ted Cruz “off-the-chart brilliant.” Now, that’s got to hurt a guy like Mazin whose tweeted claim to fame is: “In 1988, I puked all over Ted Cruz’s textbooks.”
A closer look at Senator Ted Cruz and his support of the faith may only give Mazin fuel for his Twitter fire. Possibly, however, there may be a lesson in it for who Ted Cruz is today as opposed to how Mr. Mazin chooses to conjure him up during the college years. Assuming that it is the Christian faith that has Mazin all rankled, he may find the following highly disturbing. That Cruz put his years of law school to work and prevented a “takeover” of churches by the Obama administration could create a full-on, tweet blast from Mr. Mazin.
While Mr. Mazin was writing Hollywood films which can have great cultural impact, both good and bad, Ted Cruz was already protecting faith and freedom of religion before ever announcing a run for the presidency.
In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz (TX-R) exposed unprecedented power grabs by the Obama administration in multiple cases before the Supreme Court. Cruz stood firm against Obama’s Justice Department in these cases and successfully helped block an attack on the faith and its pastors:
“If the Department of Justice had won these cases, the federal government would be able to … dictate who churches choose as ministers.” – Ted Cruz (The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration’s Attempts To Expand Federal Power)
On the Obama Justice Department’s hit list was freedom of religion with Christianity as the primary target. Long a bane to the Progressive Left (that rejected God from it 2012 presidential convention) is that the Ten Commandments — which are foundational to the Judeo-Christian faith — served as the biblical inspiration for both the U.S. Constitution and Capitalism. True Christians stand with Israel much to the disdain of Democrat presidents from FDR, to Jimmy Carter, to Barack Obama. True Christianity is a blockade to bigotry and tyrannical aspirations.
In an outrageous attempt to increase its power, the Obama administration attempted to usurp the right of a church to choose its own pastors. In the case Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, the Justice Department reportedly argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it “had the right to oversee a church’s choosing of ministers.” The Supreme Court foiled Obama’s egregious attempt to curtail a fundamental right of churches. In a 9-0 opinion, the justices sided in favor of the Lutheran Church.
The day Barack Obama swore on the Bible to uphold the U.S. Constitution — which includes the freedoms of speech and religion — the assault began. Obama’s gibes at Judeo-Christian belief and scripture are well documented. Gaining control of who preaches in Christian churches would have given the Obama administration control of the message. Obama acolytes in the pulpit would be in position to convolute the scripture to serve their political ideologies.
Socialist-Progressives in the Democrat Party are going to great lengths to escape the authority of God, preferring to live by their own countenance and self-devised morality while attempting to subjugate or eliminate God out of society. In a head-fake to voters, many assume the role as pretenders of faith. Those who outsmart themselves in matters eternal, including those in Washington and Hollywood, go so far as to cherry-pick the Bible and mismatch or purposely convolute scriptural intent to serve their political agenda.
That Ted Cruz professes the Christian faith may cause any number of Hollywood screenwriters angst. If so, that explains it. Though just being conservative, or simply independent in thought, has always been enough to tee-off any Hollywood liberal worthy of their far-Left credentials. Third-grade name calling or vitriolic rhetoric, whether from the Left or from the Right, does not promote serious discussions and does the country no service. The message to Mr. Mazin is that the pillars of faith on which Ted Cruz professes to firmly stand cannot be knocked down. Whether a bitter sounding, former acquaintance can cheapen the national dialogue, that is a whole other matter entirely.
Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING — Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website: www.AgingWarning.com.