First off, who cares if Mayor Pete Buttigieg is gay. That’s his business; that’s his personal choice. This is America and in the bubble of his South Bend, Indiana, home, Buttigieg is quite free to live his life as he chooses.

But since the mayor-turned presidential hopeful has made his gayness a front-and-center campaign issue — which, in all likelihood, is a very big reason why he’s trending upward in the polls, he’s the glitzy new toy in the Democratic Party who dared to take on the Christian vice president — well then, fair’s fair.

Gay talk it is.

Besides, his campaign websites are scant on the actual policy, so what else is there to talk about than his sexual preferences?

In a CNN town hall earlier this week, Buttigieg remarked, “God does not have a political party.”

His CNN questioner, who let slip during her questioning that she was bisexual but also Christian, asked Buttigieg: “How will you challenge the right’s moral monopoly on Christianity to unite conservative, moderate and liberal Christians alike?”

And here’s what Buttigieg replied, hat tip Breitbart: “It can be challenging to be a person of faith, who is also a member of the LGBT community. And yet to me, the core of faith is regard for one another and part of how God’s love is experienced according to my faith and tradition, is in the way that we support one another and in particular, support the least among us.”

He went on for a while, but frankly, there’s enough there to stay busy.

Christianity, which is the faith with which Buttigieg self-identifies, does not have at its core a “regard for one another.” Neither is its core “how God’s love is experienced” — or even how “we support one another.”

The core of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins — or, more to the truth, the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, who died for our sins. Twisting and deviating from this core is to twist and deviate from the truth.

And one of the core ways of learning about the truths of Christianity is by faithful reading of the Bible, both Old Testament and New.

Buttigieg says he does all that.

But then he says this: “[I]n this White House … there is a lot of chest-thumping and self-aggrandizing, not to mention abusive behavior, but also political agenda that seems to always be revolving around the idea that somehow it’s too easy for poor people in this country. It’s just so different from what I get when I read Scripture. I get that one of the things about Scripture is different people see different things in it. But, at the very least, we should be able to establish that God does not have a political party.”

True. God does not have a political party.

But God does have a guidebook that dictates to humanity how they should act — how men and women should behave in accordance with His will. It’s called the Bible. And if Buttigieg thinks the Bible is a book of personal interpretation, he’s not just wrong. He’s utterly blind. And by repeating that utterly blind message on his public platform, he’s selling a deception to others.

A hermeneutics class could clarify even more.

In the meantime, a simple perusal through chapters and verses in Genesis, through Leviticus, through Romans, Timothy, and Matthew and Jude could give Buttigieg some much-needed scriptural truths about homosexuality.

Buttigieg can believe however he wants about his sexual choices and how they fit in with God’s word. But once he makes those views a signature campaign issue, and tries to press his unholy views on the rest of Christianity, and sell his watered-down fuzzy feel-good, pick-and-choose spirituality as genuine Scriptural principles, the battle lines are drawn. A good Christian must put on the armor.

Buttigieg may be the LGBTQ world’s greatest and favorite voice right now. But he’s an enemy to truth. He’s a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing howling at Christianity’s door.

But all that’s not to say he’s not a very nice man, loved by God, deserving of respect and prayer and kindness.

First appeared at The Washington Times.