How Beto O'Rourke became a conservative boogeyman [View all]

[TexasTowelie]

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is, most likely, not going to be the Democratic nominee. But for some on the right, even while O’Rourke is seemingly flailing in the polls, he is newly representative of the “quiet part of the progressive agenda” — what every Democrat believes but never says out loud.

Case in point: During an LGBTQ town hall hosted by the Human Rights Campaign and CNN last week, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke called for religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage to lose their tax-exempt status.

“There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone … that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us,” he said, “And so as president, we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”

Link to tweet

Democratic challengers, including Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren, backed away from O’Rourke’s stance, with Buttigieg saying on CNN’s State of the Union, “The idea that you’re going to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they haven’t found their way toward blessing same-sex marriage — I’m not sure he understood the implications of what he was saying.”

Read more: https://www.vox.com/2019/10/17/20913821/beto-orourke-religious-institutions-guns-conservatives