Buttigieg: Republican Party is ‘Dedicated to the Opposite’ of ‘Every Other Word That Comes Out of the Mouth of Christ’

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Pete Buttigieg, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a radio interview that the Republican Party is “dedicated to the opposite” of “every other world that comes out of the mouth of Christ.”

“You know, you go through the New Testament, for sure, and every other word that comes out of the mouth of Christ is about things like helping those in need and you got a Republican Party dedicated to its opposite,” said Buttigieg.

“There will be a reckoning,” he said.

Buttigieg made these remarks during a Sept. 6, 2019 appearance on “The Breakfast Club.”

Buttigieg then argued that Republican “hold everybody in line” with a “doctrine about abortion.” But he refuted this doctrine, saying “there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath”—seemingly suggesting that a baby can be aborted until it is out of the womb and breathing.

“Now right now they hold everybody in line with this one kind of piece of doctrine about abortion, right, which is obviously a tough issue for a lot of people to think through morally,” Buttigieg said.

“Then again there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath,” said Buttigieg.

“And so, even that is something that we can interpret differently,” he said.

Here is a transcript of the part of the radio interview where Buttigieg talked about the teachings of Christ, the Republican Party and when life begins:

Host: “So what’s the reckoning between the GOP and Christianity?

Buttigieg: “Well, the GOP’s got to deal with the fact that they have come on board with a president that is deeply against not just our values but their own, right. I mean, if you are in Mike Pence’s world where, you know, being Christian has a lot to do with, you know, a kind of rigid traditional sexual ethics—like that’s not how I come at Christianity, but he does. And yet he thinks that this president ought to be the moral as well as political leader of this country. And you’ve got an entire Republican Party coming on board with this. But I think deep down they know that this isn’t right.    

Meanwhile, you’ve got religious traditions that teach us about the importance of lifting up the stranger, the importance of lifting up the poor, of healing the sick.  

You know, you go through the New Testament, for sure, and every other word that comes out of the mouth of Christ is about things like helping those in need and you got a Republican Party dedicated to its opposite. There will be a reckoning.     

Now right now they hold everybody in line with this one kind of piece of doctrine about abortion, right, which is obviously a tough issue for a lot of people to think through morally. Then again there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath. And so, even that is something that we can interpret differently. And pick up–

Host: I’m pro-choice.

Buttigieg: Me too. But I think that no matter where you think about the kind of cosmic question about how life beings, most Americans can get on the board with the idea of, all right, I might draw the line here, you might draw the line there, but the most important thing is that the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision.

Host: Absolutely. And I think that if you’re a man who is against abortion, you haven’t gotten the wrong woman pregnant. …

Buttigieg: Look, in the same way we’ve talked about the way that, you know, the white world needs to deal with race, instead of saying this is just an issue of minorities, men are going to have to deal with misogyny and women’s rights. Like this is largely a men problem. And so, men have to talk about this. Since when should men be dictating what women ought to be able to do. Anyway, my point is when it comes to the religious stuff–     

Host: I agree. … Old white men are doing that, by the way, I just want to throw that back out there. …

Buttigieg: Okay, you’re not wrong. But coming back to the religion thing, somehow they put a party label on God. And I don’t think God belongs to a political party. And whether you’re religious or not you have a choice. And we got to change the way that we think about what it means to talk to voters of faith without going down the road—like they have—of using faith as a way to order people into living their lives a certain way, which, obviously, is bad news for my community, but I also think it’s just not the right way to go.”

 



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