Pete Buttigieg excites the gay community, but he could face a rocky road
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg answers questions during a sold-out fundraising event at Bar Lubitsch in West Hollywood, Calif., last month. By Chelsea Janes Chelsea Janes Reporter covering the 2020 presidential campaign Email Bio Follow April 6 at 1:28 PM WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.
So has the fact, Buttigieg says, that he needed the Supreme Court to give him the freedom to marry his partner, Chasten Glezman. Same-sex marriage was illegal in Indiana until 2014, and he cites that to illustrate how government alters lives; his marriage exists, he tells voters at every stop, “by the grace of one vote on the Supreme Court.”
But for now, his rise is electrifying many in the gay community, symbolizing an acceptance its members could hardly imagine even a decade ago. His campaign says it raised $7 million in the first quarter of 2019, signaling unexpected support and potential staying power in the sprawling Democratic field.
Clearly, Buttigieg’s rise hardly means homophobia is a thing of the past, any more than Barack Obama’s election marked the end of racism. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 68 percent of voters were comfortable with a gay presidential candidate — a big jump from previous years and an all-time high, though that 30 percent minority could prove to be vocal.
Buttigieg poses with actor Billy Eichner during the fundraising event at Bar Lubitsch in West Hollywood on March 14. That support in the gay community — or at least a desire to have his voice in the race — is translating into fundraising dollars. Broadway mogul Jordan Roth and his husband will host Buttigieg for a fundraising event. The LGBTQ Victory Fund ran a social media and email campaign to help Buttigieg cross the 65,000 donor threshold that qualifies him for the Democratic debates.
In 2015, Mike Pence, then governor of Indiana, signed the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which critics said legalized anti-gay discrimination if justified by religion. A short time later Buttigieg, then 33, told his parents he was gay, then penned an article in the South Bend Tribune to inform his constituents.
On the stump, Buttigieg does not avoid discussing his gay identity, but doesn’t focus on it. He talks of serving in the military, how that made him realize his time was finite, and wanting to find love. He uses his marriage to explain his understanding of why government matters, and argues forcefully that faith and a gay identity are not contradictory.
“You and your husband seem to have a disagreement on how to pronounce your last name,” Tapper said. “Uh oh,” Buttigieg responded, and the audience laughed. Chasten has emerged as a major part of his husband’s campaign. He was recently asked to speak at a Human Rights Campaign event in Houston, and his Twitter profile continues to rise. He tweets about missing his husband while he’s on the campaign trail, jokes about waiting for food deliveries while his husband is “crushing townhalls” in South Carolina, and describes groggily looking for his slippers while Pete conducts early-morning interviews.
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