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Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has attracted a lot of attention for talking about God during his presidential campaign. Together with Sen. Cory Booker, the two Democrats have been talking about their personal faith ever since the beginning of the campaign and they represent a change for people who are used to Republicans talking about Christianity. There is also a difference in the way they are talking about faith and how they are not using it as a weapon against various groups.
One of the positive aspects of Buttigieg's campaign is the fact that he supports the idea of equal treatment for both religious and non-religious people together with his support to church/state separation policy. Seeing a Democrat candidate who is openly speaking about religion could possibly help some moderate voters realize that Democrats are not extremely anti-religious. Anyway, changing the perception that Democrats are those who avoid religion may be very difficult because even President Obama's talks about religion didn't change that.
Even Buttigieg talked about Democrats and how they avoid talking about faith: "Well, I think Democrats have been a little allergic to talking about faith, and it’s largely for a very good reason, which is that we passionately believe that when you’re running for office, or when you’re in office, you have an obligation to treat people of any religion and people of no religion equally. It’s a basic American principle." Buttigieg said as Patheos reports. While Buttigieg also shares this popular opinion, that Democrats are "allergic" to talking about faith, he is not insisting on talking only about his personal faith.
According to Patheos, Buttigieg stated that when people are not respecting some important values "...we have an obligation to call that out — and to speak about how, you know, not just the Christian faith tradition that I belong to, but pretty much any religious or non-religious moral tradition I’ve ever heard of, tells us that it’s really important how we treat the least among us, the most vulnerable, the marginalized, that we are obliged to serve the poor, and heal the sick, and clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger. Stranger, by the way, being another word for immigrant. And what we’re seeing right now the White House is the opposite."
This is one of the most important positive things in his way of speaking, he doesn't see his faith as the only source of morality but he also speaks about "non-religious moral tradition" as an important part of the society.
