The father of Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), a Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that LGBT activists will try to legalize pedophilia.

“I think that’s the next thing that they’re going to push, to try to legalize pedophiles,” Cruz told BuzzFeed News. “Pedophilia, you have all these laws to forget about — we have laws on the books about statutory rape. You have to basically throw away the statutory rape laws to legalize pedophilia.”

Rafael Cruz, a pastor, made the remarks at the World Congress of Families, an annual gathering of social conservatives held this year in Salt Lake City. He has been criss-crossing the country as a surrogate for his son, speaking to pastors, Republican activists and others.

Ted Cruz has been assiduously courting the vote of evangelical Christians, leading a fight against Planned Parenthood, assailing the Supreme Court for legalizing same-sex marriage and holding rallies promoting religious liberty. The next is scheduled for next month at Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian school in South Carolina that prohibits physical contact between unmarried men and women.