Twitter 'moment' misrepresents Ben Shapiro criticism of Beto O'Rourke's policy against religious freedom

The news aggregator for the social media platform Twitter falsely misrepresented comments by Ben Shapiro in a manner that made him sound more extreme than his full statement.

The report was posted to the social media platform under the headline, "Ben Shapiro says he'd 'pick up a gun' or leave the country over Beto O'Rourke's stance on gay marriage."

Image Source: Twitter moment screenshot

O'Rourke said during a CNN LGBT town hall that he would take away the tax exempt status from any organization that didn't affirm gay marriage, including churches and colleges.

Contrary to the headline's simplified version of his comments, Shapiro made a much more complex and nuanced statement against O'Rourke's policy.

"If you come to tell me that you're going to indoctrinate my kids into a particular policy and that I can't pull my kid out of a school and send my kid to the school that I want to send them to, that I can't go to the church or synagogue that I want to go to, and if you make that national policy, not just California policy where I can move, but national policy — people are not going to stand for that," said Shapiro on his popular podcast Wednesday.

"And if you send a truant officer to remove my child, I have two choices at that point, right? If I have no place to move because you have now made this national, federal policy, I now have two choices: One is to leave the country utterly. Two is to pick up a gun. Those are the only choices you have left me," he explained.

"It is my right to raise my child with the moral precepts that I find to be beneficial for my child," Shapiro continued later on in the commentary. "Beto O'Rourke does not to get to raise my child — and if he tries, I will meet him at the door with my gun. That is insane."

Critics of Shapiro ignored those on the left who agreed with his assessment of O'Rourke's policy, including fellow presidential candidate South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

"I'm not sure he understood the implications of what he was saying," Buttigieg responded on CNN's State of the Union show.

"That would mean going to war not only with churches, but with mosques and a lot of orgs that may not have the same view of various religious principles that I do," he concluded.

Here's the video of Shapiro's statement: