Beto O’Rourke may be able to add America’s churchgoers to the growing group of people who are mad as hell at his spontaneous political moves.
The former Texas congressman, more famously known for swears than sermons, unleashed a new crusade on Thursday night, telling CNN moderator Don Lemon during a LGBTQ town hall hosted by the network and the Human Rights Campaign that he believes religious institutions should lose their tax exempt status if they oppose gay marriage.
“There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us," O'Rourke said.
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As national Republicans and religious right leaders predictably seized on the comments, members of O’Rourke’s own party slapped their foreheads, contending that he had, once again, played into President Trump’s hands to score some momentary points in the presidential primary–a familiar trend emerging for a candidate struggling to maintain even small bursts of momentum.
“Politically, it is precisely the kind of thing Donald Trump needs if he’s going to win re-election,” Michael Wear, who served as former President Obama’s faith outreach leader, told The Daily Beast.
“It’s frankly a lack of consideration for Americans who view things differently.”
Sure enough by Friday morning, Republican National Committee had blasted 2020 Dems' assault on the First Amendment, simply asserting, “Beto O’Rourke leveled a direct attack on religious freedom.” Sen. Rick Scott (D-FL), a close Trump ally who hails from the biggest general election battleground state, openly mocked O’Rourke on Twitter.
[Beto O’Rourke] “is the most honest Democrat running for President – he admits they want to shut down churches if they don’t adhere to his beliefs. The reality is, the Dems want to repeal the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution. They’re saying it openly,” he tweeted. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) called his comments an unconstitutional attack on churches.
Speaking at the conservative Family Research Council's “Values Voter Summit” on Friday, Tony Perkins said: “He’s going after your guns, and now he’s going after your God. I hope he finds Him.”
O’Rourke, who said on Friday he raised $4.5 million in 2019's third quarter, recently sparred with South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and other unaffiliated Democrats by doubling down on a debate promise centered around gun confiscation, where he said “hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” in Houston. Some party members contended privately that O’Rourke was helping Republicans write their own attack ads that can be used against them in favor of Trump.
As he continues to slip in momentum, O’Rourke’s moves are becoming a nightmarish scenario for some Democrats, who worry he’s muddying what it means to be in the party when the stakes are higher than ever heading into a general election against Trump. And while progressives are accustomed to being cast as villains by the GOP, it’s particularly galling for Democrats who are right of center, who know full well Republicans will do their best to tie O’Rourke’s left-wing fever dreams to anyone with a “D” next to their name.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), who often appears at events with former Vice President Joe Biden, spoke out strongly against O’Rourke’s gun pledge last month, saying, “Frankly, I don’t think having our presidential candidates, like Congressman O’Rourke did, say that we’re going to try and take people’s guns against their will is a wise either policy or political move.”
In an interview with New York magazine published on Friday, freshman Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) launched into a broad criticism of O’Rourke’s inability to win in his home state, and how that bodes for him in the party moving forward.
“I don’t think losing is cool,” Rose said. “I want the Democratic Party to be the party of Kyrsten Sinema and not the party of Beto O’Rourke,” he added, referencing the freshman senator from Arizona.
O’Rourke has faced a significant downturn in national and early state polls since launching his bid in March, just months off of a closer-than-expected Senate challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2018. Now, in the thick of the Democratic primary, the latest Real Clear Politics’ national polling average places him at just 1.8 percent, below entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who earns 2.7 percent in the index.
O’Rourke’s campaign announced on Friday that it will head to ruby red, gun-friendly Alabama next week, where he’ll keynote the Democratic Conference’s Convention in Birmingham.
But he may have to tread lightly in the Bible belt.
“It is frankly hard to imagine an administration of either party trying to take away the tax exemption of every Catholic institution and every evangelical institution in the country, which together represent nearly half the population,” Douglas Laycock, a conservative scholar at the University of Virginia, said.
Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University who studies the intersection of religion and politics, told The Daily Beast O’Rourke has “basically driven off every Christian,” and offered a grim prediction for his campaign.
“The comments he made last night probably will end his candidacy,” Burge said. “He just sealed his fate.”
