The large number of Democratic Party presidential candidates has become a running joke. But the unexpected strength of 37-year-old South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a Harvard graduate who calls himself a “gay dude in Mike Pence’s Indiana,” is a significant achievement, even for a political party that depends on identity politics. More importantly, Buttigieg claims to be a gay Christian, despite the Biblical scriptures that condemn same-sex conduct. He was “married” to another man in an Episcopal Church.