Politics

Pete Buttigieg Equates Radical Shia And Wahhabi Islam With Christianity

No featured image available

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg equated radical Shia Islam and the Islamic ideology behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks with Christianity’s capacity for extremism Friday.

Buttigieg made the comparison during a Friday radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, arguing that radical Islam, like Christian-motivated extremism,”can have a thousand different flavors.” His comments came in response to the question of whether he believed that radical Iranian Shia Islam was more dangerous than Wahhabi Islam — a variant of Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia and serves as the impetus for much of radical Islamic terrorism.

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg compares Iran’s variant of Shia extremism and Wahhabism — which is the source of the overwhelming majority of Islamic terrorism — to Christianity pic.twitter.com/fYNYnHT3wR

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 17, 2019

“Well, you know, not unlike Christianity when it is motivating someone to do something extreme, it can have a thousand different flavors,” Buttigieg said of radical Islam.

The Indiana mayor failed to specify any instances of Christian extremism comparable, in his view, to Wahhabist suicide bombings and mass public executions.

Buttigieg, who identifies as gay and Christian, has made several other comments critical of evangelical Christians and orthodox Christian belief. He openly decried Vice President Mike Pence’s traditional Christian beliefs concerning marriage and sexuality and denounced evangelical Christians who support President Donald Trump as hypocrites.