Buttigieg's Rise Exposes a Deepening Rift in the "Christian Right"

Buttigieg and Christofascist extraordinaire, Mike Pence.

I have long argued that the Republican Party has no long term plan for survival short of a coup that would overthrow the U.S. Constitution and end popular elections with independent political parties.  For years now, the GOP has based its future on aging white voters - who are literally dying off - and far right Christians extremists (I call them the Christofascists), groups that basically hate everyone who is not just like them. Meanwhile, the rest of the population is becoming increasingly diverse and whites are headed towards a minority status within a few decades.  Now, compounding the numerical decline of aging white bigots is a growing rift in the so-called Christian Right (it is neither Christian nor right on the issues) that centers on LGBT rights and acceptance that is best personified by the rise of Pete Buttigieg.  Younger generations even among evangelicals are supportive of gay rights and same-sex marriage while their elders are not. The growing rifts within evangelicals in many ways mirror the fissures developing in the United Methodist Church over LGBT rights which many view as on the cusp of a major schism. Younger evangelicals increasingly reject the anti-gay vitriol of their denominations and demand that 12th century understandings of sexuality be abandoned.  A piece in The Week looks at the growing rift over LGBT rights which ultimately could endanger the GOP as it remains committed to anti-gym extremism. Here are excerpts:

Pete Buttigieg is having a moment in the national spotlight. Buttigieg, as most of America now knows, is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination. He's also gay, married to a man, and a regular churchgoer. And his meteoric rise has brought the debate over faith and sexual ethics clearly into focus.

This debate over same-sex relationships has been tearing apart American churches for years. Sometimes it presents itself as a dividing line between denominations. For example, Episcopalians, of which Buttigieg counts himself, have largely embraced gay rights. Evangelicals mostly have not. Last month, conservative commentator Erick Erickson said that "if Buttigieg thinks evangelicals should be supporting him instead of Trump, he fundamentally does not understand the roots of Christianity. But then he is an Episcopalian, so he might not actually understand Christianity more than superficially."

The debate is also alive and well within denominations themselves. For example, the United Methodist Church — the largest in U.S. mainline Protestantism — recently strengthened its prohibitions of same-sex wedding ceremonies and gay clergy, even while many similar churches have been liberalizing their teachings on homosexuality.

This aligns the United Methodists with the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and a growing number of Christians in the Global South. Indeed, it was African delegates, working with U.S. evangelicals, who supplied the margin of victory for the Methodist Church's recent interpretation of Scripture and tradition.

But no doubt many in the church were outraged by the decision. Methodist pastors in the Washington, D.C., area took out an ad in The Washington Post decrying the vote and calling for a more inclusive church. The chaplain at the Methodist college I attended, a longtime ordained minister within the denomination, has even signed on to work for Buttigieg's presidential campaign. Another nearby school ended its affiliation with the Methodist Church over the LGBT vote.

The people on both sides of the religious debate over homosexuality aren't merely talking past each other. Their views on the issue are fundamentally very different from one another.

Buttigieg summed up his view well when addressing his ongoing dispute with Vice President Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian with traditional views on sexual mores. He said that "the Mike Pences of the world" should understand "that if you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator."Buttigieg would shift the focus toward gay rights, where social conservatives are losing ground as more people support gay marriage.

A Buttigieg nomination would also put evangelicals on the defensive over their support for President Trump. After all, how can you say you stand for the sanctity of marriage but still vote for the twice-divorced, thrice-married, locker room-talking, frequently incendiary president?

This debate is no longer just between Episcopalians and evangelicals. It's raging between Christians on the left and the right side of the political spectrum. Conservatives have long struggled to grapple with committed same-sex relationships, as well as the increasing number of otherwise theologically orthodox people who disagree with them about sexual ethics.

Such weighty theological questions aren't likely to be solved in the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign. But the right 2020 developments could get voters — and people in the pews — talking about them.

As conservative denominations - including the Catholic Church - hemorrhage  members and younger individuals are eschewing religion entirely, the rift over gays and gay rights and Christian hypocrisy will likely intensify.  Among the big losers will likely be the GOP which has placed all of its eggs in one basket. Frankly, the demise of the GOP cannot come soon enough in my opinion.