In 2015, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg voiced a moral disagreement with Mike Pence, then governor of Indiana.
Just days before Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—which would allow business owners to deny services based on religious reservations—Buttigieg told local reporters it would "create problems" for his city's LGBTQ community. "This paves the way for discrimination," Buttigieg said. He also claimed the bill would be unnecessary in a society in which an increasing percentage of the population supported same-sex marriage: "I'm not aware of a lot of same-sex couples in South Bend desperately trying to get homophobic bakers to supply their weddings."
It was nothing new from Buttigieg, who had butted heads with Pence for years over the issue. But since the two both consider themselves devout Christians, and Christians are commanded to love their neighbors, they made public efforts to maintain a friendly relationship. When Buttigieg came out as gay just months after Pence passed RFRA, the governor praised the mayor's character. "I hold Mayor Buttigieg in the highest personal regard," Pence told a South Bend TV station. "I see him as a dedicated public servant and a patriot."
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