NBC News’ Joe Cabosky is making a point that he probably regrets
Homophobia hurt Pete Buttigieg — as much as America wished it didn’t
It seems so long ago that the first openly gay candidate won the Iowa caucuses. Mere weeks later, the Pete Buttigieg campaign is now past tense, as the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Wherever that leaves Buttigieg and his future political prospects — or any future LGBTQ candidate — this moment affords us an opportunity to ask ourselves where the nation as a whole really is in terms of acceptance of LGBTQ candidates.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that Buttigieg was unsuccessful only because of homophobia. But lessons from this cycle do allow us to be honest about the challenges that LGBTQ candidates face. While these issues may not have gotten a lot of attention in 2020, Buttigieg’s campaign demonstrates how many problems of homophobia still remain.
After Buttigieg won Iowa, I often heard things akin to homophobia not mattering much anymore. Sure, there were Rush Limbaugh’s homophobic remarks. Sure, there was the Buttigieg voter in Iowa asking to have her vote back upon learning he was married to a man. But these were isolated incidents, no?
All cycle, a Gallup poll was used as an example of how accepting Americans have become, with 76 percent of those surveyed saying they’d vote for a gay person for president. While that sounds high, that still means one-quarter of the country admits that it’s a nonstarter. That’s a lot of votes lost right off the bat.
Now, despite Joe mentioning Rush a few times, and going through “realities of homophobia” and stuff, who, primarily, was voting in the Democratic Party primaries?
That’s right. Democrats. Democrat voters. The same ones who drove out the black people running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, along with most of the women, have now driven out Mayor Pete because they are, apparently, homophobic. Despite yammering about the 2012 NC gay marriage constitutional amendment, bigotry, and so forth, it was Democrats who knocked Mayor Pete out of the race.
And they come from within the LGBTQ community as well. The sad irony was that Buttigieg was also attacked for not being “gay enough.†These criticisms came from the more progressive or activist left of the LGBTQ population, creating a conundrum for candidates from minority backgrounds who hold more moderate positions — ones that can be crucial in general elections.
Yeah, these were Democrats
Thus, for every step forward that Buttigieg’s campaign made for future candidates, it also exposed how far America needs to go in its acceptance of LGBTQ leaders.
Democrats knocked him out.
Read: Bummer: Mayor Pete Dropped Out Of Democrat Race Due To Homophobia »
Don’t hold your breath for big climate policy changes — even if a Democrat wins the White House.
President Trump sought to ease rising fears about the coronavirus epidemic on a day when the first U.S. death from COVID-19 was reported and more cases were reported on the West Coast.
Parents aren’t getting it, and that’s a problem.
