Even though South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg advocates for freedom in his 2020 presidential campaign bid, he apparently doesn’t believe small business owners have the right to religious freedom.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that, Buttigieg’s strong support of the Equality Act, an act pushing non-discriminatory policies against LGBTQ peoples, earned him a speech at a Human Rights Campaign event in May.
On Tuesday, The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) announced that Pete Buttigieg will speak at the HRC Las Vegas Dinner on Saturday, May 11. “A champion of LGBTQ equality, Buttigieg helped lead the fight against then-Indiana governor Mike Pence’s efforts to license discrimination against LGBTQ Hoosiers in 2015,” the Human Rights Campaign stated in a press release on Tuesday. “Buttigieg is an outspoken advocate of the Equality Act — critically important, bipartisan legislation that would finally provide clear protections against discrimination for LGBTQ people across the country.”
“Don’t let anybody tell you that the other side is the side that’s got a handle on freedom,” Buttigieg tweeted in March, “We are the party of freedom and we shouldn’t be afraid to go out there and say it.”
“We have allowed our conservative friends to get a monopoly on freedom,” says Buttigieg in the tweeted video, “Now they care about freedom, but they care about a very specific kind of freedom. Freedom from. Freedom from regulation. As though the government were the only thing that could make us unfree. But that’s not true, is it? We know that your neighbor can make you unfree.”
The South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg doesn’t hesitate to champion the Equality Act‘s ambition to ban any kind of LGBTQ discrimination in places of business, with no regards of religious belief.
“Not aware of many same-sex couples around South Bend demanding homophobic bakers supply their weddings,” tweeted Buttigieg back in March.
“Our laws should respect the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of every citizen,” stated Greg Baylor, director of the Center for Religious Schools at Alliance Defending Freedom, to the Free Beacon. Baylor said the Equality Act “fails to meet this basic standard.”
“This federal law would force Americans to participate in events and speak messages that violate their core beliefs,” he said. “We should reject laws that single out and punish citizens on the basis of their peacefully expressed beliefs.”
