Ellen Page Grills Ted Cruz Over Gay Rights

At Iowa State Fair, Actress Ellen Page, wearing a hat and sunglasses, came up to the Republican Presidential candidate about "the persecution of gays in the workplace and LGBT rights," according to abcnews.

"What about the question about LGBT people being fired for being gay-trans?" Page asked.

"Well, what we're seeing right now, we're seeing Bible-believing Christians being persecuted for living according to their faith," Cruz responded.

"You're discriminating against LGBT people," Page, 28, said. "Well, would you use that argument in segregation?"

"Now I'm happy to answer your question, but not to have a back-and-forth debate," said Cruz, a devout Christian who has said he believes that marriage is between one man and one woman.

The Texas senator, 44 years old, retorted that "no one has the right to force someone else to abandon their faith and their conscience."

"Imagine, hypothetically, you had a gay florist and imagine two evangelicals wanted to get married and they decide, 'You know what, I disagree with your faith and I don't want to provide flowers,'" Cruz posed to Page.

Later, when ABC News asked Cruz whether he knew that it had been the Canadian, Ellen Page, Cruz denied it, and added that it had been about "religious liberty".

On Friday night, Cruz is planning to hold a rally in Des Moines, in order to call "attention to the religious persecution of Christian business owners and employees who have been sanctioned by their government because of their religious beliefs," according to his campaign.

It will be attended by other religious freedom advocates, which will include an Iowa couple who turned down a request to host a gay wedding at their venue.

Page will shortly star in the film "Freehold," co-starring Julianne Moore. The movie is about a cancer patient's fight for pension right.

Page admitted that she is gay on Valentine's Day last year.

On Twitter, Page has posted some critical tweets about Cruz.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT rights group, later took Cruz to task, according to trailblazersblog.

"Ted Cruz showed today that he is living in another era where he thinks it's acceptable to treat LGBT people differently and allow businesses to refuse service to someone just because of who they are, or who they love," said JoDee Winterhof, HRC's senior vice president of policy and political affairs.