Appearing Tuesday on CNN, presidential
hopeful Pete Buttigieg reiterated that he believes Vice President
Mike Pence is okay with discrimination against the LGBT community.
Speaking with CNN's Poppy Harlow and
John Avlon, Buttigieg, the 37-year-old openly gay mayor of South
Bend, Indiana, was asked about his criticism of Pence, the former
governor of Indiana.
In a separate interview with CNN,
Pence, a Christian conservative opposed to LGBT rights, including
marriage equality, said that Buttigieg's quarrel was with the First
Amendment.
“The vice president is entitled to
his religious beliefs,” Buttigieg said. “My problem is when those
religious beliefs are used as an excuse to harm other people. That
was a huge issue for us in Indiana, when he advanced a discriminatory
bill in 2015 under the guise of religious freedom that said it was
lawful to discriminate provided you invoke religion as your excuse. I
just believe that's wrong.”
“This isn't about him as a human
being. This is about policies that hurt people. Policies that hurt
children. And to this day – if you listen closely to what he said –
you'll notice that to this day, he has not brought himself to say
that it shouldn't be legal to discriminate against people in this
country because they're LGBT. In most parts of this country, you can
still be fired, denied housing, denied services because of who you
are. He seems to be okay with that.”
“Maybe he will evolve to eventually
believing that it shouldn't be lawful to discriminate against people
for being gay. And if he makes that development, I would welcome that
and I would praise that,” Buttigieg
added.
Buttigieg also said that he's looking
forward to raising children with his husband Chasten.