Franklin Graham Hits Buttigieg For Being Gay: ‘Not Something To Be Flaunted’

Franklin Graham delivers the eulogy during the funeral of his father Reverend Dr. Billy Graham in Charlotte, North Carolina. Graham, who preached to millions of faithful face to face over his decades-long career and ... Franklin Graham delivers the eulogy during the funeral of his father Reverend Dr. Billy Graham in Charlotte, North Carolina. Graham, who preached to millions of faithful face to face over his decades-long career and tens of millions more through the power of television, died last week at age 99, leaving a Christian evangelist movement without its best known champion of modern times. / AFP PHOTO / Logan Cyrus (Photo credit should read LOGAN CYRUS/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Evangelical icon and proud Trump supporter Franklin Graham — who once boiled down Trump’s affair and pay-off to a porn star to “nobody’s business” — went on a Twitter tirade attempting to jab presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for being gay.

The Twitter sermon predictably backfired.

Graham called Buttigieg’s sexuality a “sin” that shouldn’t be “flaunted, praised or politicized” and defined marriage as a union between “a man and a woman,” a staple moral and political conviction for most conservative evangelicals.

Graham was predictably dragged on Twitter for the rant, with some of Twitter’s most prominent LGBT voices, like writer Roxane Gay and “Ellen” show producer Andy Lassner, schooling Graham on his views.

Buttigieg’s campaign declined to comment to TPM, but it’s not the first time that conservative evangelicals have attempted to diminish Buttigieg, an Episcopal, for holding what they feel are conflicting morals.

Vice President Mike Pence — former governor of Indiana, where Buttigieg is the mayor of a midsize town — and Buttigieg have engaged in similar sparring matches over Pence’s conservative religious beliefs and his record on LGBT issues. Buttigieg spoke to Pence directly during a speech at the LGBTQ Victory Fund’s National Champagne Breakfast earlier this month.

“That’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: That if you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is not with me,” he said. “Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”

Pence in turn scolded Buttigieg for picking a fight when “he knows better. … he knows me.”

In recent weeks, Buttigieg has been forced to defend his own Christian beliefs against an onslaught from evangelicals like Pence who are thrown off by the perceived dissonance of being Christian and being gay.

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