JD Vance repeats comments he wants wife Usha to convert to Christianity | JD Vance

JD Vance is doubling down on comments he made that he wanted his wife, Usha Vance, to convert to Christianity — remarks that have sparked political backlash from some quarters.

At an event with Turning Point USA at the University of Mississippi honoring the conservative group’s murdered founder, Charlie Kirk, an audience member asked the U.S. vice president about how he sees the connections between American patriotism and Christianity.

“Why are we making Christianity one of the major things you have to have in common to be one of you? To show that I love America as much as you do?” the audience member asked, after pointing out that Vance’s wife, Usha, is Hindu and that they are raising their children in an interfaith marriage.

Vance said his wife grew up in a Hindu family “but not in a particularly religious family” — and noted that when he met his wife, they both would have considered themselves agnostic or atheist.

Vance converted to Catholicism in his 30s after being raised in a vaguely evangelical family. He was baptized into the Church in 2019 just as he was beginning to become a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, who chose Vance as his running mate when he successfully ran for a second presidency in 2024.

“My views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching,” Vance, a former U.S. senator from Ohio, said at the time of his baptism. “I saw a real overlap between what I would like to see and what the Catholic Church would like to see. »

At the Turning Point USA event, Vance said he and his wife ultimately decided to raise their children as Christians.

“Both of our children go to Christian school. Our eight-year-old just made his first communion a year ago. That’s how we decided to reach our agreement,” Vance said, to loud applause. “As I told her, and as I said publicly, and as I’m going to say now in front of 10,000 of my closest friends: Do I hope, one day, that she will somehow be moved by the same thing that moved me in church? Yes. Honestly, I do, because I believe in the Christian gospel and I hope that one day my wife will come to see it the same way.

“But if she doesn’t,” Vance continued, “God says everyone has free will, so I don’t have a problem with that. It’s something you work out with your friends, your family, the person you love most.”

Usha Vance has publicly stated that she has no plans to convert to Christianity. In June, she told conservative blogger Meghan McCain that although the family had made church “a family experience…the kids know I’m not Catholic.”

“They have ample access to Hindu tradition, from the books we give them to the things we show them from recently visiting India to some of the religious elements of this visit,” Usha Vance said.

The executive director of the Hindu American Foundation criticized Vance’s remarks, telling the New York Times that the vice president was “basically saying that…this aspect of [Usha] it’s just not enough.”

“It represents a lot of uncertainty in the community,” Suhag Shukla told the outlet. “This only fueled those fears.”

After his comments Wednesday, Vance responded to a social media post — which has since been deleted — that said “it’s weird to throw your wife’s religion under the bus, in public, to be accepted for a moment by the groypers,” a term for some far-right extremists.

Vance called the comment “disgusting” and an example of “anti-Christian bigotry.” He said his Christian faith “tells me that the gospel is true and that it is good for human beings.”

“[Usha] she herself encouraged me to reconnect with my faith many years ago. She is not a Christian and has no plans to convert, but like many people in an interfaith marriage – or any interfaith relationship – I hope she can one day see things the way I do,” he wrote.

“No matter what, I will continue to love her and support her and talk to her about faith and life and everything else, because she is my wife.

“Yes, Christians have beliefs. And yes, those beliefs have many consequences, one of which is that we want to share them with other people. That’s a completely normal thing, and anyone who tells you otherwise has an agenda.”