In a chat with the Des Moines Register, Mayor Pete Buttigieg shared that, while he’s not shied away from being open about being gay and his marriage, “it’s not the only thing that defines” him.”
“I am proud of who I am,” Buttigieg told the Des Moines Register. “I’m certainly very proud of my marriage and my husband. We don’t shy away from that. It’s also not the only thing that defines me.”
“I think some people have an image of what a gay person or an LGBTQ activist is supposed to look like. And I think if you’ve met one gay person, you’ve met one gay person,” he said. “We have different styles and different approaches. But what I try to do is just be who I am … I don’t know who else to be.”
Mayor Pete also addressed the topic of “healthy identity” politics in which “each identity [can] connect with every other one.”
And he drew a contrast between himself and how the current occupant of the Oval Office handles those who are ‘different’ saying, “This is a moment where anybody who can be marked down as different is in some way vulnerable because of the way this administration works.”
• InstaHunk Gustavo Naspolini almost looks like he’s in a Disney fairytale in this photo from Italy. #MyPrinceMyPrince!
• A thread on Reddit found gay men sharing that ‘ah-ha!’ moment when they realized they were gay.
• A new Gallup poll shows 53 percent of Americans believe we need the Equality Act passed in order to ensure LGBTQ people aren’t discriminated against. Forty-six percent said we don’t need such laws. Guess which 46 percent?
• Check out this first look at the upcoming Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story.
Click image to enlarge
• The State Department has announced that it is ending all aid to Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador until the countries take “concrete actions to reduce the number of illegal migrants coming to the U.S. border.”
• The fabulous Robyn drops her latest music video, “Ever Again,” set in a landscape she describes as “a dreamy place, somewhere undefined, somewhere in my consciousness.”
The new track celebrates the power of sensuality, human touch and self care.
Over two decades, the “Dancing on My Own” singer has wracked up 5 Grammy nominations, 4 Top Ten singles in the UK and literally hundreds of millions of streams.
During an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press, host Chuck Todd repeatedly quizzed Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, on his relationship with African-American voters and whether being openly gay could be an obstacle in winning their votes.
Reading from an interview with Reverend Rodric Reid of the Uplift Church in Indianapolis, Todd recounted Reid’s thoughts on Buttigieg’s marriage to his husband, Chasten.
“‘I guarantee it’s going to be an obstacle for the candidate from South Bend,” read the quote from Reid. “That is really still a touchy subject, specifically and especially in the African American church.”
“Now, I think it could be overcome, because we are gradually getting to a point of, and I don’t want to say ‘accept,’ but we are getting to a point of realizing this is the culture that we are going to have to begin to live with and adapt to it,” added Reid.
Todd then turned to the Mayor and asked how his outreach efforts to the Black community are going.
“They’re going well,” said the 37-year-old mayor. “And we are working very hard to engage people across the party, but especially black voters, who expect you to demonstrate, especially when you’re new on the scene, what your values are and how you’re going to promote policies that lift them up.”
Buttigieg then pivoted to Donald Trump adding, “I also think we have a moment on our hands when we can do the exact opposite of what the president has done.”
“The president has used identity as a wedge, used race as a wedge to divide people who have common interests,” the young mayor explained.
Instead of dividing people, Buttigieg suggested recognizing our “distinctive identities,” whether the Black or LGBTQ community, could help to “build bridges, to reach out to people different from us, knowing that anybody who has been on the short end of an equation of exclusion has a way to sympathize with people who’ve had different experiences with exclusion in this country.”
“And if we build a solidarity around that, then people who have, for whatever reason, felt a lack of belonging or felt exclusion or felt discrimination in this country, even though those patterns of discrimination are very, very different, when all of us come together, we win, and we are all better off,” he added.
‘Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd and Mayor Pete Buttigieg
Todd wasn’t done with the subject, though.
The NBC host told Buttigieg he’d spoken to African-American congressmen who like what they’ve heard from the mayor and could see themselves supporting his campaign, but are concerned some of their more socially conservative constituents may have issues with his sexuality.
Todd wondered what could Buttigieg do to win over those voters?
Noting that he won his second term as mayor in a 80 percent landslide as an out candidate, Mayor Pete answered, “I’d invite them to look at what happened in South Bend.”
He continued saying he was confident “that American voters, especially Democratic voters, will not discriminate when the opportunity comes up to choose the right leader for the future.”
It is worth noting that a recent Post and Courier/Change Research Poll of likely Democratic primary voters in South Carolina, which holds the third presidential primary in the country and is the first real gauge of African-American voters mood, shows Buttigieg has recently surged into third place with 11% behind former Vice President Joe Biden (37%) and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (17%).
So it would appear that Mayor Pete’s outreach to the Black community is showing positive results.
You can watch Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s full interview on NBC’s Meet the Press below. The discussion on Buttigieg and the Black vote happens at the 12:57 mark.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (L), former VP Joe Biden (C), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (R)
A new Post and Courier/Change Research Poll of likely Democratic primary voters released Sunday shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a commanding 20 point lead in South Carolina over his competitors, but Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren seem to be surging.
Biden’s support stands at 37% of likely Palmetto state voters, while Warren snatched up the number two slot with 17 percent. Mayor Pete is in the bronze position with 11 percent.
Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tied at 9 percent.
The South Carolina primary, which follows the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, is the first real show of where Black voters are leaning.
While Sanders had some struggle with South Carolina in 2016, some pundits say Buttigieg could have a similar issue connecting with African-American voters. But it appears his team has heard those issues and is working to address his outreach to that voting block.
A new a Reuters/Ipsos poll may be good news for Mayor Pete Buttigieg as the survey shows age may be a more disqualifying factor for presidential candidates than sexual orientation.
Overall, the poll found that 48% of adults in the United States said they were “much” or “somewhat” less likely to support someone for the White House if the person was older than 70, while 34% were less likely to vote for someone who is gay.
And 12% said they were more likely to vote for a gay candidate, compared with 11% who said they were more likely to support a candidate who is over 70.
The current Democratic field of candidates running for the 2020 presidential nomination includes two septuagenarians – former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The poll also showed that minorities were more likely to be supportive of a gay candidate than whites, and millennials were more supportive than Baby Boomers. Additionally, urban dwellers were more supportive than those living in rural areas.
• I could not resist this adorable pic of Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who encountered this little guy out on the campaign trail. “Even the littlest voices deserve to be heard.”
• Four U.S. Special Operations troops charged in the death of a Green Beret soldier in Mali plotted to record him being sexually assaulted as part of a plan to embarrass him through hazing.
• After two years of harassing Vox reporter Carlos Maza on YouTube for being gay and Latino – we’re talking hundreds of troll comments, doxing Maza and more – the video site finally took some action towards YouTuber Steven Crowder by ‘demonetizing’ his channels.
They didn’t stop the hater from posting his homophobic campaign against Maza, but at least he can’t make any money from it. (p.s. Maza wasn’t happy with the penalty)
Demonetizing 👏 doesn’t 👏 work. 👏
Abusers use it as proof they’re being “discriminated” against. Then they make millions off of selling merch, doing speaking gigs, and getting their followers to support them on Patreon.
The ad revenue isn’t the problem. It’s the platform.
The problem isn’t Crowder and the problem isn’t monetization.
The problem is that @YouTube allows monsters and bullies to become superstars, break YouTube’s rules, build an army of loyal, radicalized followers, and then make millions selling them merch that sustains their work.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg is standing up for NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s right to kneel during the national anthem.
“The way I feel about it is the flag that was on my shoulder when I served represented, among other things, our right to free speech,” said Mayor Pete to TMZ while in New York City. “You don’t have to like it, but one of the reasons we serve was to defend that right, the right of peaceful protest and the idea that we can protest what is wrong with our country.”
“If the president had served, maybe he’d feel a little more strongly about some of those freedoms,” Pete added. “And, I get that there’s a lot of strong opinions about this, but that’s part of why we served.”
Mayor Pete Buttigieg was asked by the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart during a Q&A at New York City’s 92nd Street Y Wednesday evening about criticism leveled at the openly gay mayor by Vice President Mike Pence and evangelist Franklin Graham.
Buttigieg has been very open about his personal faith as an Episcopalian, as well as the hypocrisy he sees in religion-based attacks.
In April, for example, Graham posted a tweet that described Buttigieg’s sexuality as “sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized.”
Mayor Buttigieg says he’s a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman—not two men, not two women. 2/3
“I guess I would say that we all have a lot to repent for,” replied Buttigieg in a pensive tone. “I have a lot to repent for when it comes to my marriage.”
From there, the 37-year-old mayor ticked off a few personal faults of his own before landing on his answer.
“Moments when I have not been as caring as I should be; moments when I’ve been selfish; moments when I’ve said a harsh word that I wish I could take back,” listed Mayor Pete.
“But one thing that I absolutely should not be repentant for, in the context of my marriage, is the fact that I’m in love with my husband,” he added.
Sharing the ways that being married to his husband, Chasten, has made him a better man, the mayor added, “And yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God.”
“That’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: That if you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is not with me,” Buttigieg said. “Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”
And during an appearance on ELLEN, Buttigieg said of the Vice President, “I’m not critical of his faith. I’m critical of bad policies.”
“I don’t have a problem with religion, I’m religious, too,” he added. “I have a problem with religion being used as a justification to harm people and especially in the LGBTQ community.”
Sitting down with Robert Acosta for an hour-long chat for Washington Post Live, Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg says he would handle Donald Trump in a general election similar to the way you handle a ‘crazy uncle.’
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Thursday likened his approach to taking on President Donald Trump to dealing with a “crazy uncle.” “It’s almost like a sort of crazy uncle management,” he said. “Like, he’s there. You’re not going to disrespect his humanity. But he thinks what he thinks. There’s not much you can do about it.”
He later added that he has a “pretty dim view” of Trump’s decision to “use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in Vietnam.” The president was granted five draft deferments — four for college and one for bone spurs in his heel — and never served in the military.
“This is somebody who, I think it’s fairly obvious to most of us, took advantage of the fact that he was the child of a multimillionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place,” Buttigieg said.
Mayor Pete was also asked if he thought Trump was racist, to which he replied, “I think so.”
“If you do racist things and say racist things, the question of whether that makes you a racist is almost academic,” Buttigieg said. “The problem with the president is that he does and says racist things and gives cover to other racists.”
