In a second heated Democratic debate Thursday night, candidate Pete Buttigieg issued a scathing rebuke of the Christian faith espoused by so many in the Republican party.
“The Republican party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion,” Buttigieg fumed.
Noting that the Democrats are quieter on religion due to a “commitment to the separation of Church and State,” Buttigieg warned that “we should call out hypocrisy when we see it,” referencing the current border crisis.
The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, went on to slam any Republican Christian who is sastisfied with the current conditions experienced by children being detained at the U.S. Mexico border.
“For a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that it is OK, to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents… that God would condone putting children in cages?”
Republicans have “lost all claim to ever using religious language again,” Buttigieg concluded, to rapturous applause.
Not the first time Buttigieg has attacked the faith of Republicans
Buttigieg has made a habit of critizing the faith of notable Republicans ever since he burst onto the scene out of relative obscurity.
Last month, the Presidential hopeful told NBC’s “Today” show that God wouldn’t be a member of the political party “that sent the current president into the White House,” despite repeatedly saying that religion should not be used as a tool of political point-scoring.
Then, there’s Mike Pence, who the coloquially-known “Mayor Pete,” has repeatedly attacked simply because he holds traditional Christian viewpoints on issues of sexuality and marriage.
Openly gay, Buttigieg previously lashed out at Pence on the issue of sexuality, despite Pence himself being nothing but courteous to the Mayor over the course of their intertwining political careers.
“If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said at an LGBT event in April. “And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”
Pence’s faith has been getting a lashing in the media, too.
This week, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough called on the VP to re-read his Bible after disagreeing with the views he expressed in a CNN interview over the weekend.
CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Vice President Pence over the conditions that migrant children are being held in on the U.S.-Mexico border. In an amicable discussion, Pence spoke indirectly against what was argued by a Department of Justice lawyer, who suggested that children detained at the border don’t need toothbrushes and showers in order to be held in sanitary conditions.
Aren’t toothbrushes and blankets and medicine, basic conditions for kids, aren’t they a part of how the United States of America, the Trump administration treats children?” Tapper asked. “Well, of course they are, Jake,” Pence replied, adding that he “can’t speak to what that lawyer was saying.”
But despite the pair seemingly agreeing that more legislative provisions needed to be passed on a bipartisan basis in order to facilitate better care at the border, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, bizarrely, still decided to tear into Pence’s deeply-held Christian beliefs.
Mike Pence is lying about children living in torturous positions right there. Mike Pence, who claims to be a Christian, a devout Christian — I’m sure he is, but he uses it as a political badge of honor,” Joe said, live on air.
He continued: “Mike should read the gospels again and see what Jesus says about the treatment of little children. You can start at Luke 17:2,” Scarborough said, “something about millstones being hung around people’s neck?”
Luke 17:2 reads:
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
In the interview on “State of the Nation,” Pence said that the poor detention center conditions were “one of the reasons we asked for more bed space” during the federal shutdown.
“Democrats in Congress refused to expand the bed space and the capacity for us to detain people at our borders,” he added. “It is one of the reasons why we continue to call on Congress to give (the Department of Homeland Security), Customs and Border Protection additional resources at the border.”