If there’s anything at all striking about Pete Buttigieg, it’s his decency. He’s a down-to-earth, clean-cut, decent person who takes care when he speaks and listens with respect. Indeed, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor has spent much of his presidential campaign making those characteristics the defining feature of his candidacy.

Buttigieg attributes this civility to his faith, promising to represent other voters “guided by a faith tradition.”

"When I’m president you’ll never have to look at the White House and scratch your head and think, 'Whatever happened to, 'I was hungry and you fed me. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you have done to me?''" Buttigieg said at a campaign stop in Iowa on Monday, quoting the words of Jesus according to Matthew 25:35-40.

It’s not surprising Buttigieg has spent so much time catering to faith-based voters and trying to convince them to stick around. He has to. Without the charming appeal, all the electorate sees is Buttigieg’s presidential platform, and one look at that would send any religious voter running.

There are, of course, the mundane attacks on Vice President Mike Pence, the cultural Left’s favorite punching bag. Despite having a perfectly normal working relationship with Pence when the vice president was governor of Indiana, Buttigieg capitalized on the Left’s hatred of Pence and used it to fuel the beginnings of his campaign, as Tim Carney noted last month. “Pence isn’t a real Christian, Pence hates LGBT Americans, Pence is a hypocrite” — stop me if these talking points sound familiar. And they probably do, because Buttigieg ripped them straight out of the ACLU’s handbook.

Buttigieg’s feud with Pence might be standard, but it’s informed by a deeply anti-religious rationale that the South Bend mayor has done a pretty good job of concealing up until recently. Speaking before a crowd in Austin a few months ago, Buttigieg let slip his grievance against “so-called religious freedom,” which he claimed is too often used as an “excuse” to “harm people.” This religious bigotry is supported by current law that makes “it lawful to harm people so long as you remember to use your religion as an excuse,” Buttigieg said.

And with that, the mask fell. Religion is great so long as it wins Buttigieg votes, but in application Buttigieg sees it as nothing more than a commodity for bigotry that can and should be regulated by the government. This kind of thinking would inevitably affect Buttigieg’s policies, regardless of how tame they might seem now compared to some of the other 2020 candidates.

Under Buttigieg’s administration, the rights of religious Americans such as Colorado baker Jack Phillips, Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman, and Minnesota videographers Carl and Angel Larsen would likely be ignored. Because when religious liberty is just an “excuse” to do harm rather than a legitimate conviction that affects the everyday lives of believers, it, too, can be ignored.

I can’t speak to Buttigieg’s personal convictions. But politically, his intent is the same as Beto O’Rourke’s, who would see every religious institution stripped of its tax-exempt status if he could. If religion won’t comply, then it must be shoved out of the public square.

Buttigieg might not openly endorse that kind of policy — he even disavowed it! But he thinks of religion the same way O’Rourke does, as a sidenote that takes second place to his social justice agenda. The difference between the two is Buttigieg is at least smart enough to win some votes, first.