Leave it to a politician obsessed with sewers to practice gutter politics. Leave it to Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to attack President Trump—who supports gay rights—by attacking a man who is not president: Vice President Mike Pence.
Leave it to Buttigieg to read the Bible as selectively as he accuses Pence of interpreting it and Trump of not following it. Leave it to a disciple more of Christ Church than Jesus Christ to tell all Americans—gay and straight—the way, the truth, and the life. Leave it to Pete, not Peter, to ignore Mark by refusing to distinguish between Trump and transcendence. Leave it to a know-it-all to know so little, even for an Anglican, about so much.
Leave it to a man who was baptized in a church in communion with Rome to find religion in the Church of England. Leave it to a Catholic who rarely went to church to reduce Catholicism to universal salvation through liberation theology.
Thus does Buttigieg seek to remake Catholicism into a division of UNICEF: a relief mission that offers no spiritual relief. Thus does Buttigieg reconcile his politics with his Maker by embracing a religion governed not by God but by a queen.
I support Buttigieg’s right to choose his religion, because his rights are no different than mine. I have no interest in his private life, regardless of his interest in publicizing his lifestyle. I defend his right to say what he wants, regardless of whether a majority of Protestants and Catholics label his wants wanton and indefensible. I defend Buttigieg’s right to be a hypocrite and a heretic, even though I am not a Christian.
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