(Getty Images/Ethan MIller)
(CNSNews.com) – Pete Buttigieg, one of the frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a May 3, 2019 video interview with The Advocate that “one of the most conservative things” in his life is his “family life.”
Buttigieg is married to another man.
“I mean, in many ways, one of the most conservative things in my life is my family life, right,” said Buttigieg.
“I have a very kind of ordinary American home life,” he said. “I got a spouse and a couple of dogs, and it’s something that I think most people can relate to.
“It’s just that my spouse is a man,” he said.
Here is a transcript of the part of Buttigieg’s interview with The Advocate where he talked about the “conservative” nature of his family life:
Host Jeffrey Masters: “…But right here in America it is still not a safe place for queer and trans people. There is a lack of acceptance, and is that part of your internal discussions in your campaign of how forward your queerness can be as you begin to campaign in more conservative areas?”
Pete Buttigieg: “You know, we try not to overthink it very much. I mean, in many ways one of the most conservative things in my life is my family life, right. I have a very kind of ordinary American home life. I got a spouse and a couple of dogs, and it’s something that I think most people can relate to. It’s just that my spouse is a man. And so I think there’s actually an opportunity by, in a way, inviting people to treat us like they would any other couple, kind of the way we have in South Bend and just see what happens, that more people than not will respond that way because I find, and this is true of a lot of out groups, that we’re just worse to people when we regard them as a category than when we encounter them as people. Don’t get me wrong, we can be awful in person, too, but on average for the most part I think it’s harder to hate them up close. And when people engage you as human beings first and then realize that you are part of some category that’s been othered or some category they’ve been taught not to like, it puts them in the mode of questioning where they were coming from just as much or more than it puts them in the mode of questioning you.”
