Buttigieg Lectures Christians On LGBTQ Teaching: ‘It Makes God Smaller’

2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said Thursday at the LGBTQ CNN Forum that Christian views of LGBTQ people ‘makes God smaller.”

The South Bend Mayor spoke out about his beliefs on religious liberty Thursday night in Los Angeles, saying “religious liberty is an important principle in this country and we honor that.”

“It’s the case that any freedom that we honor in this country has limits when it comes to harming other people,” Buttigieg said.

“We say that the right to free speech does not include the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. A famous justice said my right to swing my fists ends where somebody else’s nose begins, and the right to religious freedom ends where religion is being used as an excuse to harm other people.”

“I have to say, when religion is used in that way, to me, it makes God smaller,” Buttigieg added. “It to me is an insult not only to us as LGBTQ people but I think it’s an insult to faith to believe that it could be used to hurt people in that way.”

Buttigieg spoke several times about his Christian faith’s view of LGBTQ persons, saying that his “Christian tradition” teaches that “you believe that God loves you and you look around and you notice that you’re gay and those two things exist at the same time.”

The South Bend Mayor added that his legal marriage to his husband Chasten Buttigieg has made him to be “more able to be true” to his faith.

“And I would also say that nothing has made me feel more connected, more able to be true however imperfectly to my faith, than the experience of putting myself second, that came with committing my life to my husband Chasten,” Buttigieg said, before taking a shot at Vice President Mike Pence.

“I really feel that that marriage moved me closer to God and I wish the VP could understand that,” he said.