Warnock vows to push back against those who use 'religion as a cover for bigotry'

Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democratic candidate in one of Georgia's two Senate runoff races, is vowing to "push hard" against individuals who use religion as a "cover" for discriminating toward others such as same-sex couples.

Warnock said Democrats should not "cede the conversation around faith and values to the right."

"We've got to push hard against people who use their faith as a cover for bigotry, who then when the LGBTQ Plus community stands up and they put forward these so called religious freedom laws," Warnock said during a discussion on Tuesday organized by the Jewish Democratic Council of America. 

Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, said that his faith "makes him insist" that health coverage is a "human right." He also said a pastor might be needed in the U.S. Senate at this time.

"I happen to think that it will be of some value in the U.S. Senate to have a pastor among peers to say, as I will, what do you mean that acknowledging someone's humanity, making sure that they have equal protection, that they're not discriminated against based upon orientation or sexual identity, what do you mean that that's an affront to your religious freedom? No, it's an affront to all that is decent, and moral, and just, to use religion as a cover for bigotry," he said.

Warnock called on the public to think about how the nation can "thrive" after the pandemic.

"I think it's time to emerge from this and re-invest in America, re-invest in our infrastructure, roads, bridges, tunnels, green energy, green infrastructure; put the people back to work, and providing jobs with a livable wage and resetting our economy to compete into the future," he said.

Warnock faces incumbent Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the January runoff.