Dems Are Mercilessly Trolling Ted Cruz Over A GOP Bill That Would Ban Porn In The U.S.

After Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee introduced a bill that would essentially ban pornography nationwide, people responded by immediately mocking his colleague, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, over a 2017 incident in which his Twitter account "liked" a hardcore adult video.

The proposed Interstate Obscenity Definition Act would significantly broaden the legal definition of obscenity by including all pornography—specifically any depiction of sexual acts that “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” If passed, the legislation would make it illegal to distribute or consume pornography, regardless of intent.

The act would also eliminate “the ‘intent’ requirement that only prohibits the transmission of obscenity for the purposes [of] abusing, threatening or harassing a person,” according to a statement from Lee’s office. If enacted, the legislation would expand upon the standards established by Supreme Court rulings in Jacobellis v. Ohio and Miller v. California, which currently shape the modern U.S. legal understanding of obscenity.

As concerning as this is, it did remind many of the time way too many people got a taste of what Cruz likes to watch in his spare time—and on the 9/11 anniversary, no less.

Although liking a post does not necessarily share it, the now-infamous tweet appeared on Cruz’s verified profile, resulting in a series of telling screenshots.

@ashleyfeinberg/X; @tedcruz/X

@tedcruz/X

At the time, Catherine Frazier, Cruz’s senior communications adviser, stated “the offensive tweet posted on @tedcruz account earlier has been removed by staff and reported to Twitter." This statement added to the confusion, as the "like" was not a tweet and suggested that someone unauthorized had accessed Cruz's account.

Cruz later told the press “there are a number of people on the team that have access to the account and it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button." He said the matter "was a staffing issue, and it was inadvertent, it was a mistake, it was not a deliberate action.”

And then the official account for the Democratic Party weighed in:

"[Cruz] assuming you're voting no on this one, right?"

You can see the post below.

The responses were hilarious.

This isn't the first time Cruz has made the news for titillating reasons.

Thanks to Cruz, there are more restrictive laws on owning sex toys in Texas than there are on guns.

According to Section 43.23 of the Texas penal code, people are forbidden from having more than six "obscene devices" in their possession. In fact, the law states that anyone who possesses them "or similar obscene articles is presumed to possess them with intent to promote the same.”

In 2007, Cruz, then the state's Solicitor General, took part in a federal case to maintain the state's ban on the sale of sex toys. The brief in that case asserted that there is "no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship.”