Ted Cruz thinks US military are ’emasculated pansies’ for including LGBT+ folk in recruitment ad
Anti-LGBTQ+ Republican Ted Cruz. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Anti-LGBT+ senator Ted Cruz has said the US military are “emasculated pansies” for including LGBT+ folk in its new recruitment ad.
Last week, the US Army released a saccharine new recruitment video that uses the tale of a queer family to tug at your heartstrings.
Titled “The Calling”, the five-part animated series on the origin stories of real soldiers, explaining why they each answered the “call” to serve.
While the video was mocked from across the political spectrum for using an LGBT+ story to recruit for the “world’s largest killing machine”, senator Cruz decided to take his criticism into “homophobic” territory.
On Thursday (20 May), Cruz shared a video on Twitter titled “Russian army ad vs US army ad 2021”. The first half of the video showed a men with shaved heads doing push-ups in a Russian army recruitment video, while the second half showed the US Army’s animation featuring an LGBT+ family.
Cruz wrote: “Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea…”
Holy crap.
Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea…. https://t.co/8aVFMW98NM
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 20, 2021
Cruz, who has never served in the military, received swift backlash from conservatives and liberals alike.
Veteran MJ Hegar shared his tweet, writing: “Alexa, how can you easily spot the guys who are intensely insecure about their own masculinity?”
Alexa, how can you easily spot the guys who are intensely insecure about their own masculinity? https://t.co/Nho6pfNLSM— MJ Hegar (@mjhegar) May 21, 2021
As the criticism rolled in, Cruz doubled down on his incredibly bad take, tweeting: “I’m enjoying lefty blue checkmarks losing their minds over this tweet, dishonestly claiming that I’m ‘attacking the military’.
“Uh, no. We have the greatest military on earth, but Dem politicians and woke media are trying to turn them into pansies.”
His use of the word “pansies”, a derogatory term for gay men, fuelled the fire, with one Twitter user describing Cruz as a “homophobic little b***h”.
Another responded: “Wow, Ted, your “clarification” managed to be homophobic, misogynistic and still anti-US soldier. So…Yahtzee?!”
A third commenter wrote: “Everyone knows your silly tweets are directed at the Trump base who wants their Senator to own the libs by saying that gay people are pansies and women in the military are a sign of weakness.”
Ted Cruz was called out by gay CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.
On Friday (21 May), CNN anchor Anderson Cooper called out Ted Cruz for his comments, and revealed that the video shared by Cruz comparing the Russian and American army recruitment ads had been circulating on “far-right and anti-American social media”.
Cooper said: “Not content to carry water for this country’s enemies, as the angry replies came in, Senator Cruz then decided to go for the old anti-gay slur.”
When the “opportunity presented itself to join…he thought about it and thought better of it,” says @andersconcooper after Sen. Ted Cruz mocked a “woke, emasculated” military.
“When somebody doesn’t serve I don’t know it’s a great idea to be attacking someone who did serve.” pic.twitter.com/cftNOYATXa— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) May 22, 2021
He continued: “Whenever the opportunity presented itself [for Cruz] to join the service, he thought about it, then thought better of it… I bet he does wish he served, because it would be better for him politically now.”
Cooper added: “When somebody doesn’t serve, I don’t know that it’s a great idea to be attacking people who did serve.”
