In a recent video, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who announced he will run for President in the 2016 election, compared himself to Galileo and likened today’s climate change activists to people of the 1500s who believed the Earth was flat. Cruz also voiced his strong support of gun rights, denounced gay marriage and openly opposed net neutrality and marijuana legalization. Additionally, he voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

I have strong beliefs about social issues, all of which revolve around personal rights. I believe everybody should be free to marry whomever they please, that the war on drugs is a waste of resources, that women should be equal to men and that climate change is one of the biggest concerns facing our world. Policies regarding these beliefs have made large steps forward in the past decade and Ted Cruz would effectively destroy these steps entirely.

I am not saying Cruz’s beliefs are inherently wrong. However, in the past decade, we have made significant social progress in health care, human rights and environmental protection. If somebody like Ted Cruz with radical views that oppose all the progress we have made in these respects is elected in 2016, we will essentially move backwards in history and reverse the success of recent social movements.

Cruz is the chair of the Senate subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, which oversees NASA. An article from the National Journal explains that Cruz believes NASA should stop focusing on the environment and spend its energy solely on space exploration. Because NASA is so involved in climate change research, putting Cruz in charge of the country could massively halt progress on this front. Climate change is real. It is happening at an alarmingly fast rate and — to be frank — you should remove yourself from political office if you believe otherwise.

Change is inevitable and it is widely accepted that we as a nation will have our economic and societal ups and downs. However, it is plain to see that in terms of human rights, environmental policy and research, among various other social issues, we consistently progress forward. The feminist movement grows stronger by the day, we continue to address the racism that is still present in the United States and experts consistently prove global warming is, in fact, a serious problem.

Ted Cruz is notoriously radical in all the wrong ways. Sometimes being radical is necessary if the goal of doing so is to make progress and challenge the status quo. Ted Cruz would not continue our progress. His opposition to feminism and human rights and his blatant disregard for the obviousness of climate change, are signs he is bigoted and close-minded — two qualities that would be detrimental in a president.

Trevor Stoimenoff is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].