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Buttigieg's Pastor Brother-in-Law Rips Mayor's 'Anti-God' Platform, Religious Hypocrisy

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There are times when I tune into a Pete Buttigieg speech online and I feel like I’ve wandered into a funhouse mirror version of the “700 Club” where the Rev. Pat Robertson is talking about how third-trimester abortion is OK with God.

His brother-in-law feels that way, too — and he says Mayor Pete is “pushing … anti-God” themes on his campaign.

A bit of background. If you haven’t noticed, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor is on a desperate quest to reclaim God for the Democratic Party as he runs for president.

For instance, Buttigieg is a member of the Episcopal Church, which has fought a pitched battle over whether the Bible condones same-sex relationships. Generally speaking, however, the church affirms the view that the passages in Scripture proscribing same-sex relationships shouldn’t be taken literally — which is certainly its right.

If you do interpret those Scriptures with some degree of literality, however, Buttigieg wants you to know you’ve got a problem.

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During his one-way spat with Vice President Mike Pence last year over Pence’s religious beliefs, he angrily declared that if Pence had “a problem with who I am” by believing the Bible prohibited same-sex relationships, ”your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”

Buttigieg also likes to trot out the creator when talking about his problems with President Donald Trump and (yes, even) his support for abortion rights.

“I think no matter where you think about the cosmic question of how life begins, most Americans can get on board with the idea of, ‘I might draw the line here, you might draw the line there,’ but the most important thing is the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision,” Buttigieg said in a September radio appearance.

So the Scriptures are a bit fuzzy on abortion, in Mayor Pete’s view — but they’re pretty clear on the fact Trump shouldn’t be president.

Do you think Pete Buttigieg will win the Democratic presidential nomination?

Buttigieg took part in one of those interminable CNN town halls this week when he was asked whether a Christian could actually vote for Donald Trump.

A stupid question deserves a stupid answer: “I’m not going to tell other Christians how to be Christian,” he said, “but I will say I cannot find any compatibility between the way this president conducts himself and anything that I find in Scripture.”



This is apparently Christianity, Democrat Edition.

As it so happens, Buttigieg’s brother in law is a pastor, apparently for a church that belongs to Christianity, Actual Edition.

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And he’s not entirely on board with this interpretation of Scripture, as he told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Wednesday.

“Yeah, it’s the height of intellectual dishonesty for Pete to make claims that there’s no compatibility with being a Christian and voting for Trump, [when] Pete, in fact, is the one who is pushing agendas and rhetoric that is clearly against Scripture,” said Rhyan Glezman, senior pastor at the nondenominational Community Church of God in Clio, Michigan.

“Just everything that Pete is pushing is, it’s anti-God. I’m just gonna be honest with you,” he added.

“Nothing lines up with Scripture for him to make cases like to say that you cannot be a Christian and vote for Trump. He’s the one that is openly contradicting God’s word over and over.”

Here’s the video; the exchange begins at 5:15:

Glezman also addressed Mayor Pete’s recent appearance on ABC’s “The View” where token kinda-conservative Meghan McCain asked him where the “line” was when it came to abortion and infanticide.

“My point is that it shouldn’t be up to a government official to draw the line,” Buttigieg said. “It should be up to the woman who’s confronted.”

Glezman wasn’t impressed by this logic.

“I’m just in a state of lament when you hear that we have someone running for commander in chief who can’t make a moral decision on whether to keep a child after it’s already been born or to have it killed,” he said.

“What kind of moral suggestions is he going to be given if he can’t come to an understanding of that? It’s just — it’s alarming.”

It’s alarming only if you consider Pete Buttigieg to be a man who seriously thinks about the Christian faith as much as he says he does on the campaign trail.

Earlier in the segment, Carlson called Buttigieg the “Lego candidate.” This isn’t an inaccurate description. I would disagree with Carlson that Mayor Pete is the first candidate in this class, but he’s certainly one of the most eager — and for Pete, religion is a pretty great building block. It’s part of his attempt to convince us he’s more Christian than President Trump, even if his positions may appear to be quite the opposite.

If you disagree with Pete on anything on ethical grounds, your quarrel is with his creator, sir. He’s enough of a moral yogi that he can contort himself into a position where he sounds like he truly believes that voting for Trump is unbiblical but the government can’t draw any lines on killing your child.

Does Buttigieg actually believe all of this?

I wouldn’t say the man is one of those preachers on those high-numbered channels who want you to believe that if you just send them $1,000, they’ll send you a vial of anointing oil that will cure any disease.

However, he’s like any other politician that flogs religion on Sunday and flouts it on Monday. (See also: Pelosi, Nancy.)

There’s nothing novel about this; the phenomenon is as old as politics. Yet, the fact that Buttigieg is an LGBT Democrat confounds expectations and somehow adds gravitas to fundamentally unserious moral proclamations such as condemning Trump voters while finding it perfectly all right for the government to countenance late-term abortion.

CNN may take this seriously. America shouldn’t.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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