Vice President JD Vance has long been open about the fact that he is in an interfaith marriage, as he was raised Protestant but has since converted to Catholicism, while his wife, Usha Vance, is largely non-religious after being raised Hindu.

Vance was recently criticized on social media for expressing his desire to see his wife also convert to Christianity during a Turning Point USA speech, but he firmly defended his position against the "disgusting" accusation, according to ABC News.

He made it clear that he would continue to love his wife regardless of her faith decisions, and called out the apparent "anti-Christian bigotry" of his critic, a right-wing Canadian journalist.

Hopeful his wife will convert to Christianity

On Wednesday, during a TPUSA event at Ole Miss University, Vice President Vance was asked about his Christian faith and how it relates to his Hindu-raised wife, who has not accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.

"For us, it works out now most Sundays, Usha will come with me to church," Vance said, "And as I've told her, and I've said publicly, and 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 in by church."

"Yeah, I honestly, I do wish that, because I believe in the Christian Gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way," he added. "But if she doesn't, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn't cause a problem for me."

JD defends his position

The next day on X, in a since-deleted post, right-wing Canadian journalist Ezra Levant told Vice President Vance that it was "weird to throw your wife’s religion under the bus, in public, for a moment’s acceptance" by far-right Christian nationalists, to which Vance replied, "What a disgusting comment, and it's hardly been the only one along these lines."

"First off, the question was from a person seemingly to my left, about my interfaith marriage. I'm a public figure, and people are curious, and I wasn't going to avoid the question," he explained.

"Second, my Christian faith tells me the Gospel is true and is good for human beings. My wife -- as I said at the TPUSA -- is the most amazing blessing I have in my life. She herself encouraged me to reengage with my faith many years ago," Vance wrote.

"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," he continued. "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."

"Third, posts like this wreak of anti-Christian bigotry," he added. "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 is a completely normal thing, and anyone who's telling you otherwise has an agenda."

Usha is supportive of JD's Christianity

ABC News reported that Vice President Vance expressed a similar sentiment about his wife and their interfaith marriage in an interview last year with The New York Times, in which he confirmed that Usha hadn't converted to Christianity but was nonetheless supportive of his taking the family to church on Sundays.

"That’s why I feel bad about it," Vance said. "She’s got three kids. Obviously, I help with the kids, but because I’m kind of the one going to church, she feels more responsibility to keep the kids quiet in the church."

"And I just felt kind of bad. Like, oh, you didn’t sign up to marry a weekly churchgoer. Are you OK with this?" he added. "And she was more than OK with it, and that was a big part of the confirmation that this was the right thing for me."