Mayor Pete’s Gay Reckoning

Win or lose in Iowa tomorrow, Pete Buttigieg has been a groundbreaking candidate and, in many ways, is emblematic of the situation that so many in the LGBT community find themselves experiencing.  Namely, their sexual orientation does not define who they are, yet others - especially the Christofascists and Republicans who prostitute themselves to them - strive to define us with a broad, negative brush.   Sadly, not all in the LGBT community (foolishly, in my view) respect Buttigieg and complain that he's "not gay enough" or that he's too socially moderate.  In reality, many of the members of the LGBT community I know fall in the socially liberal, fiscally moderate, and progressive categories  - much like Buttigieg.  As for black voters, while they claim homophobia doesn't drive their failure to embrace Buttigieg more, I think they doth protest too much as they cling to a more conservative version of Christianity that white society has used throughout America's history to control minorities.  A column in New York Times looks at Buttigieg's groundbreaking role.  Here are excerpts:

You can listen to long stretches of Pete Buttigieg’s remarks and hear little or no reference to the trailblazing nature of his campaign. You can almost forget.

But as he wrapped up a rally here on Thursday night, with the clock ticking down fast to the Iowa caucuses, he made soaring, stirring mention of it. You remembered.

“Iowa has a remarkable knack for making history,” he told hundreds of supporters, noting that he’d initially visited the state to support Barack Obama during the Democratic primary in 2008, when Obama’s Iowa victory set him on his way. “You changed America’s — and the world’s — expectations for what was possible.”

Then he alluded to Iowa’s legalization of gay marriage in 2009, six years before that happened nationally, and how it gave him hope that he might someday “be a happily married man.” The crowd roared. I had one foot out the door — it had been a long, long day — and I stopped in my tracks. As a gay man and an American, I felt a surge of pride.

Win or lose, Buttigieg is the first openly gay American to become a serious presidential candidate, one who landed on the covers of prominent magazines, was fawned over on the most-watched television talk shows, raised exponentially more money than any of the governors in the race, outpaced Beto O’Rourke, outpolled Kamala Harris, caught President Trump’s attention, qualified for all of the Democratic debates and more than held his own in each of them.

Win or lose, he’s an example, an education and a hell of a story. That narrative is about youth — he just turned 38 — and the power of hyper-articulateness in an era of presidential crudeness. But it’s also about sexual orientation, which has and hasn’t factored into his pitch in surprising ways.

He has grappled, on the national political stage, with questions that all L.G.B.T.Q. people ask, so that his candidacy is a metaphor for our lives: To what extent am I defined by my sexual orientation or gender identity? What does and doesn’t it tell you about me?

Buttigieg’s answers have disappointed some L.G.B.T.Q. people — and were bound to, given the expectations placed on any politician who is blessed and cursed to become a symbol. Female candidates have had experiences similar to his; candidates of color, too.

He has weathered complaints, even derision, from L.G.B.T.Q. progressives, many of whom say he’s not gay enough, his manner and mannerisms too strait-laced, his policy preoccupations too moderate, his success infuriatingly reflective of how readily and well he assimilates into heterosexual America. “Gays Seem to Be Mayor Pete’s Worst Critics” was the headline of a column in The Washington Blade, an L.G.B.T.Q. publication.

That saddens me. As I’ve written before, part of what so many gay people have fought so hard for is the recognition that we don’t fit into tidy boxes, otherwise known as stereotypes — not sartorially, not ideologically. Absolutely disagree with Buttigieg’s opposition to “Medicare for all” if you have a different view, but don’t suggest that he should support it because he’s gay.

And don’t say that by discussing his own Christianity, he’s consorting with the enemy. Yes, religion has been used cruelly against L.G.B.T.Q. people. But one of the most profound dimensions of Buttigieg’s candidacy is how he has turned that around, for instance asserting that his marriage to his husband, Chasten, has brought him “closer to God.”

Buttigieg has campaigned frequently with his husband, embracing him onstage, and has mentioned his marriage in debates. And he doesn’t shy away from questions about his sexual orientation . . . But he doesn’t volunteer lengthy ruminations about its impact on how he sees the world or showcase it in any other way.

None of the voters at his rallies in Iowa brought it up when I asked them what drew them to Buttigieg. They mostly raved about his intelligence.

Were there any particular obstacles he might face in a general election?

“His youth,” said Louann Cooling, 62, of Le Grand, Iowa. It was the same answer — his youth, or his inexperience — that others gave. No one mentioned his being openly gay.

Being gay and an emblem of progress hasn’t given Buttigieg any special traction with younger Democrats, who respond much less favorably to him than older Democrats do.

“While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate,” he said. “Wearing this wedding ring in a way that couldn’t have happened two elections ago lets me know just how deep my obligation is to help those whose rights are on the line every day, even if they are nothing like me in their experience.”

Those remarks didn’t have the effect he intended. Some African-Americans accused him of equating very different kinds of discrimination, and polls show that his support from black Democrats remains abysmal.

What does Buttigieg’s being gay tell you? That he has trepidation and caution in him — he stayed in the closet all those years — but that he has courage, too, enough to pursue the presidency despite the inevitable spotlight on him as a novelty.

I’m not sure he really does “thrilled,” and he confessed to being more a Dave Matthews Band fan. In any case, he said, “I usually have a kind of celebrity blindness.”

A gay man who doesn’t twinkle at the stars around him? Yep, our creator makes us in all shapes and stripes. Thank you, Mayor Pete, for taking that message out on the trail.