Ted Cruz Gets Attacked by Right and Left Over Tweet Blasting Uganda’s New Anti-LGBTQ Law as an ‘Abomination’
Francis Chung/E&E News/POLITICO via AP Images.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took fire from both sides of the partisan aisle after he tweeted criticism of a new anti-LGBTQ law passed in Uganda.
Cruz’s tweet late Monday morning quoted a New York Times article about the new law, described as “among the most restrictive of its kind in the world.”
According to the Times, homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda, but the bill that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed on Monday broadens the definitions and increases the severity of potential penalties.
Under the new law, punishments include “life imprisonment for anyone who engages in gay sex,” “up to a decade in prison” for “[a]ny one who tries to have same-sex relations,” and the death penalty for those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” defined as “acts of same-sex relations with children or disabled people, those carried out under threat or while someone is unconscious.”
“This Uganda law is horrific & wrong,” tweeted Cruz. “Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ is grotesque & an abomination.”
“ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse,” he concluded, adding the “#LGBTQ” hashtag.
Cruz’s tweet swiftly caught the attention of critics from both the right and the left, with liberals finding his criticism of Uganda’s government hypocritical while he’s voiced support for anti-woke boycotts by conservatives in the US and not opposed anti-LGBTQ legislation from other Republicans, and he caught the ire of MAGA Republicans for appearing to ally with the left or having misplaced priorities.
Cruz’s tweet did garner some praise, but it was often framed in a way that still took a swipe at the Texas senator.
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