As Twitchy reported recently, The Washington Post published a puff piece profiling 2020 Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg’s spouse, Chasten, who actually came across as kind of boring. And to a lot of liberals, that’s proving problematic. You see, Chasten and Pete are gay, but are they the right kind of gay?
Slate noted that Buttigieg is white, male, upper-class, Midwestern, married, Ivy League–educated, and a man of faith. But did he ever experience true oppression as a gay man? The Outline published a similar piece under the headline, “Why Pete Buttigieg is bad for gays: Mayor Pete might be the most palatable gay man in America. That’s precisely the problem.” Buttigieg is “a veteran, a Christian, and a fierce, married monogamist.” The guy doesn’t even go to clubs and hook up. That’s not the gay man we want in the White House.
So here we are again, with TIME magazine putting Pete and Chasten Buttigieg on the cover under the banner, “First Family.”
TIME's new cover: Mayor Pete Buttigieg's unlikely, untested, unprecedented presidential campaign https://t.co/kMRow7D4sM pic.twitter.com/xmrZaAW7y4
— TIME (@TIME) May 2, 2019
Doesn’t that photo remind you of the classic painting “American Gothic”? Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Greta LaFleur notes that the cover looks like a Norman Rockwell painting, and it’s so … white. She writes:
To be clear, I have no intention of relegating “family” to the realm of the heterosexual or the straight, for a number of reasons that reflect things like the fact that most queer people have strong ties to family, given and/or chosen. What I am saying is that the unmistakable heraldry of “FIRST FAMILY,” alongside the rest of the photograph — the tulips; the Chinos; the notably charming but insistently generic porch; the awkwardly minimal touching that invokes the most uncomfortable, unfamiliar, culturally-heterosexual embrace any of us have ever received — offers a vision of heterosexuality without straight people.
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Yeah, Buttigieg’s gay, but … he’s kind of straight when you think about it. Right?
“This photo is about a lot of things, but one of its defining features is its heterosexuality. It’s offering us the promise that our first gay first family might actually be a straight one.” https://t.co/DDIWsCgsd6
— LA Review of Books (@LAReviewofBooks) May 21, 2019
What?
— Neo-Federalist (@Neo_Federalist) May 21, 2019
— Apex (@Apex_Aporian) May 21, 2019
— CaptainPupper (@WetDoggoSmell) May 21, 2019
It's comments like this that makes me wish that stupidity was painful. Then maybe the left would look for a cure. pic.twitter.com/Wiwxix1ypO
— ?Ѡąƨƙɛƪωɛɛ?Ɯѧßβiȶ ?and 7 others (@WaskelweeWabbit) May 21, 2019
Referring to a photo of a man and his husband as 'heterosexual' because they have a relatively conventional family that happens to be gay is bizarre. It also seems to be a weird "you're not a real gay" attack on the many LGBT people who do want to just live "normal" lives.
— Tiffany (@tiffanyrg9) May 21, 2019
heterosexuality 2019. two dudes with a generic porch who have sex with each other pic.twitter.com/PvJ3GyhzNI
— gringx (@NormieDeGuerre) May 21, 2019
Nope, trust me its still pretty freaking gay.
— JayMack (@JayMack71988701) May 21, 2019
Delete your account.
— Samizdat (@Samizdattt) May 21, 2019
The hot takes from progressives on Buttigieg’s gayness and if it’s authentic are bizarre — and yet the writer of each one is convinced conservatives will be the ones who’ll have a problem with a gay president.
Related:
Here’s another piece on why presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg might be the wrong kind of gay https://t.co/9Xu4cRYsCZ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 9, 2019
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