Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said he isn’t interested in feuding with Vice President Mike Pence, after Pence accused Buttigieg of being critical of his Christian faith.
“I’m not interested in feuding with the vice president, but if he wanted to clear this up, he could come out today and say he’s changed his mind that it shouldn’t be legal to discriminate against anybody in this country for who they are. That’s all,” Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., said on “The Ellen Show,” which will air on Friday.
“I’m not critical of his faith; I’m critical of bad policies,” said Buttigieg, who came out as gay in 2015. “I don’t have a problem with religion. I’m religious too. I have a problem with religion being used as a justification to harm people and especially in the LGBTQ community.”
Buttigieg, who worked with Pence when the vice president was governor of Indiana, has recently claimed that Pence is “the cheerleader of the porn star presidency” and argued that Pence is “at best complicit” in the rise of white nationalism. He also said Sunday that marrying his husband “has made me a better man, and yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God.”
“If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said on Sunday. “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, who didn’t support legalizing same-sex marriage, brushed off the remarks on Thursday.
“He’s said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better,” Pence said. “He knows me.
“My family and I have a view of marriage that’s informed by our faith, and we stand by that,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that we’re critical of anyone else who has a different point of view. One of the great things about this country is our freedom of religion and the freedom of conscience, and we’ll continue to cherish our values, cherish our views.”
[Related: Karen Pence says Pete Buttigieg is attacking her husband for ‘notoriety’]
