GG News Bureau
Washington DC, 31st Oct: A controversy has erupted after US Vice President JD Vance said he hopes his Hindu wife, Usha, will someday “embrace Christianity” like him. Speaking at a Turning Point rally in Oxford, Mississippi, Vance remarked, “Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by Church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that, because I believe in the Christian gospel.”
He added, “If she doesn’t, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn’t cause a problem for me.”
The comments have drawn criticism online, with many calling them “hypocritical” given Usha’s public stance that she has “no intention of converting.” Critics noted that the statement undermines the interfaith balance the couple has maintained since their 2014 wedding in Kentucky, which included Hindu rituals to honour Usha’s Indian heritage.
Usha, who co-hosted the Citizen McCain podcast earlier this year, had said that she and JD raise their three children in an interfaith household where they can choose their own beliefs. “We send our kids to Catholic school, but they have plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books we give them,” she said.
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal also weighed in, posting on X, “He calls her agnostic. Afraid to admit her Hindu origin. Where has all this talk of religious freedom gone?”
JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, said he was “agnostic or atheist” when he met Usha at Yale University. The controversy comes at a time when religion and politics continue to intertwine in American public life, particularly under the Republican leadership.
