But talk of religion and politics is as inseparable in the US as it is in Iran, albeit with different outcomes.

The latest round of religion in politics is being stirred by the mayor of South Bend Indiana, a married homosexual and (of course) a professed Episcopalian. Pete Buttigieg would like to be the next Democratic president of the United States hoping to defeat Donald Trump in 2020. On the surface his credentials look good. A Rhodes Scholar (so was Bill Clinton), a career that included Navy service, two terms as a small-city mayor and coming out as homosexual. He is in a committed relationship, so he tells us.

But rather than just setting his sights on Trump, he has set them more viciously on VP Mike Pence, the former governor of Indiana - and specifically his history on LGBT issues.

Pence is an Evangelical Anglican, also ex-catholic who got converted to Christ at a Christian music festival in Kentucky. He moved from being a Catholic Democrat to becoming an Evangelical Republican. "I gave my life to Jesus Christ," he recalled years later, "and that's changed everything." There is no shame in that. He has been happily married to his first and only wife for 33 years.

Both men claim that their faith influences who they are, the decisions they make and much more. Both men say their faith informs their decision making.

As an Evangelical Anglican (though I am told he often attends a non-denominational church in DC) Pence attends (when he can) the Falls Church in Virginia. He is one of my tribe. Buttigieg is a full-throated liberal Democrat, who will undoubtedly get a full court press in time from Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry if, and when he moves up the ranks as a possible Democrat contender/nominee for president. He has a long hill to climb, with Biden and Beto taking up most of the political airtime. But he's a player and can't be ignored.

Buttigieg makes the perfect Episcopalian. He was a Roman Catholic but that Church's stand on homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered" saw him exit for the Episcopal Church as TEC embraced sodomy, homosexual marriage and abortion. A simple segue with no guilt. Same God, different morals.

Buttigieg is a progressive in every sense of the word. He stands for everything that true Bible believing Christians do not believe in or adhere too. He might be the poster boy for the liberal mindset and for radical leftist versions of the Christian faith, but that does not make him a biblical Christian. He joins the ranks of dying liberal Protestant America.

He says his same sex marriage has "moved me closer to God." This begs the question what god he is talking about. The God of Holy Scripture, and the only revelation we have of God's revealed will about sexual relationships, utterly condemns homosexual behavior in seven places, highlighted with St. Paul's blunt words found in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." Buttgeig might want to consider Gen. 1 and 2, the "male and female created He them", later repeated by Jesus himself in the gospels.

Perhaps Buttigieg thinks he can write-off St. Paul as a sexual Neanderthal, but millions of Christians who believe in the authority of Scripture do not, and they won't vote for Mr. Buttigieg. Buttigieg would clearly reject reparative therapy for teens because it violates the "made that way" message that homosexuals so cherish. But reparative therapy does work. The late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi was a pioneer in this clinical approach, where his team saw remarkable results of change over many years.

That Buttigieg thinks he can judge Mike Pence personally, heightens his hypocrisy. Calling out Pence for supporting a porn-loving president as though somehow Pence is responsible for Trump's past life is both absurd and judgmental. Let him who is without sin...and, yes, homosexual practice is sin which Buttigieg conveniently chooses to ignore.

During a Sunday speech at the LGBTQ Victory Fund's annual National Champagne Brunch in Washington, DC, Buttigieg referred to Pence as the face of religious bigotry against gay Americans.

"Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that if me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade," Buttigieg said. "And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand ... If you've got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator." Apple President Tim Cook echoed similar words, proclaiming that his being gay is "is God's greatest gift to me." Some gift, bearing in mind that tens of thousands of men have died of HIV/AIDS. I wonder if they were to come back from the grave, would they say that!

However, there is not a shred of evidence of either a gay gene or that God ever created a single homosexual.

However, Pence has a history of treating Buttigieg with respect when he was Governor of Indiana, despite the mayor's continued campaign of aggression towards Pence's evangelical beliefs. During his radio interview with the Pences, Kilmeade played a 2015 clip of then-Indiana Gov. Pence praising Buttigieg after he came out: "I hold Mayor Buttigieg in the highest regard and we have a great working relationship, and I see him as a dedicated public servant and a patriot."

Buttigieg, by contrast, cannot find a nice word to say about Pence. He trash-talks him in much the same way Trump trash-talks people. But you never heard Pence trash-talk anybody. He is a Christian gentleman and now he is taking flak for saying he disagrees with homosexuality. Pot and kettle, Buttigieg, pot and kettle.

Of course, the liberal media is eating up Buttigieg in its haste to endorse a 37-year-old who has about as much chance of winning the presidency as the Episcopal House of Bishops supporting Bishop William Love's biblical criticism of resolution B012.

Pence is a social conservative with deep ties to conservative evangelicals. Pence helped convince evangelicals that a Trump presidency would take consistently socially conservative stances on LGBT issues, abortion and other issues the group values. For many evangelicals, Trump has come through on issues like abortion and conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.

And yes, Pence did sponsor the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which he argued is meant to protect the free exercise of religion. The RFRA was backed by all but three votes in both the House and the Senate, and thus by almost everyone, including Clinton and even the ACLU. It was the high tide of America's commitment to religious freedom over three hundred years.

The sea change in attitudes towards religious freedom since RFRA is a clear indication, though only one of many, of how the Long March through the institutions by the left has succeeded. America is at a watershed moment because we are on the verge of the replacement of ideas from 1776 and the American revolution by ideas from 1789 and the French revolution. What is called Progressivism is largely the fruit of Neo-Marxism or cultural Marxism.

In 2006, as head of the Republican Study Committee, a group of the 100 most-conservative House members, Pence rose in support of a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Citing a Harvard researcher, Pence said in his speech, "societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family." Pence also called being gay a choice and said keeping gays from marrying was not discrimination, but an enforcement of "God's idea."

He opposed a law that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would have banned discrimination against people based on sexual orientation. Pence voted against that law in 2007 and later said the law "wages war on freedom and religion in the workplace."

However, after criticism from the business community, Pence signed an amendment to the law intended to protect gays and lesbians! You don't hear that from Buttigieg.

Pence is an easy target for Buttigieg who deliciously paints Pence as a homophobe and homosexual hater, the trope of the progressive left. Of course, it plays right into the hands of the darlings of cable news networks who delight in taking every opportunity to trash anybody who dares oppose the homomafia of contemporary culture and Facebook and Netflix.

Pence believes in the authority of Scripture, Buttigieg interprets the Scripture to conform to his devices and desires. Culture is on the side of Buttigieg; Scripture, tradition, reason and history are on Pence's side. Pence attends a church that fears God rather than man and refuses to embrace pansexuality. Buttigieg belongs to a church which embraces inclusive sexualities and for its sin is dying...which is probably what will happen during his run for the White House.

END