E-Paper
'She has no plans to convert': JD Vance clarifies amid row over 'wife's conversion' remark
The clarification comes after JD Vance at an event candidly expressed his hope that his Hindu-raised wife would one day embrace Christianity.
US Vice President JD Vance clarified on Friday that his wife, Usha Vance, has no plans to convert to Christianity.
The clarification comes two days after the vice president's remarks at an event where he candidly expressed his hope that his Hindu wife would one day embrace Christianity.
“…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 may one day see things as I do,” Vance wrote on X, in response to a post.
“Regardless, I'll continue to love and support her and talk to her about faith and life and everything else, because she's my wife,” he added.
He also defended his response about his interfaith marriage on Wednesday, saying that as a public figure, people are curious and that he wouldn't have avoided the question.
“I'm a public figure, and people are curious, and I wasn't going to avoid the question,” he wrote.
What JD Vance had said
During the Turning Point USA Event in Mississippi on Wednesday, JD Vance was asked whether he hopes his wife will eventually “come to Christ”.
Responding candidly, he had said: “Now, most Sundays, Usha will come with me to church. As I've told her, and as I've said publicly, and as I'll say now in front of 10,000 of my closest friends -- do I hope, eventually, that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by in church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that because I believe in the Christian gospel and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way.”
The US vice president had added that faith is deeply personal and that differences in belief do not create conflict in their marriage.
Also Read | JD Vance divorce rumors surface after big admission. What's true, what's not
"But if she doesn't, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn't cause a problem for me. That's something you work out with your friends, with your family, with the person that you love," Vance had said.
What Usha Vance said about her interfaith marriage
Just months ago, Usha Vance had opened up about how she and her husband were raising their children – Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel – in an interfaith household.
Also Read | Jen Psaki brutally trolled by White House for swipe at JD Vance-Usha marriage
Speaking to Meghan McCain on her podcast ‘Citizen McCain’, the Second Lady said: "So what we've ended up doing is we send our kids to Catholic school, and we have given them each the choice, right? They can choose whether they want to be baptised Catholic and then go through the whole step-by-step process with their classes in school.”
Usha Vance had also disclosed that when she met JD Vance at Yale University, he wasn’t Catholic.
"At the time when I met JD, he wasn't Catholic, and he converted later and when he converted, we had a lot of conversations about that because it was actually after we had our first child, maybe it was after Vivek was born too," she said.
"I'm not Catholic, and I'm not intending to convert or anything like that," Usha had added.
