Evangelical leader Franklin Graham on Wednesday chastised Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg for being gay, calling homosexuality a “sin” that the South Bend, Ind., mayor and war veteran ought to “repent.”
In a tweet, Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, called out the candidate, who is a newlywed, and whose candidacy has been surging in early polls.
“Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian,” Graham tweeted. “As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman — not two men, not two women.”
The tweet follows a CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Tuesday during which Buttigieg said, “I get that one of the things about Scripture is different people see different things in it.”
“At the very least we should be able to establish that God does not have a political party,” he said.
“It can be challenging to be a person of faith who’s also part of the LGBTQ community and yet, to me, the core of faith is regard for one another,” Buttigieg added. “And part of God’s love is experienced, according to my faith tradition, is in the way that we support one another and, in particular, support the least among us.”