Q Toon: Side Eye for the Gay Guy

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is now an officially declared candidate to become the first openly gay president of the United States since James Buchanan. As such, he now qualifies to have antigay zealous crackpots bellowing about Sodom and Gomorrah at his campaign events.

Mayor Pete came out in 2015, two years into his first term, while his state's governor, now Vice President Mike Pence, was preaching the right-wing gospel of exclusion and Christian Privilege, and the Supreme Court was about to rule on Obergefell v. Hodges. He married his husband in an Episcopal church last June, and their first stop in their wedding Studebaker was the local Pride Week block party. His penultimate appearance before making his presidential campaign official was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

So it might surprise you to know that Mayor Pete is getting hit from both sides.

There is a certain camp of people, mostly within the LGBTQ community, who think that Mayor Pete may be gay, but he isn't gay enough.

There is a certain kind of gay guy. He is very likely white. He would say that he is in his “mid-thirties,” although he is much closer to the end than to the beginning of his last credibly young decade. Older women think he is handsome; younger men are not so sure. He is a professional of some kind — not ostentatiously wealthy, but comfortable enough to take the occasional ski trip in Colorado or spring vacation in Spain. He probably enjoys “the theater.” He is sure to mention at some point that he likes to read.

The knock on Mr. Gay Whitebread is that we've had enough white men in the White House, and it's a woman's turn now, preferably a Latina or a Muslim, and transgender if possible, and perhaps a paraplegic, except we've already had one of those so scratch that. He can always come back in another eight years once the cuteness factor has worn down (or in four if either of the two candidates currently leading in the polls wins the nomination).

Frankly, at this moment in history, I'm fine with any of the 147 candidates for the Democratic nomination. I'm not 100% thrilled about half a dozen of them, but I find the criticism that Buttigieg is too Midwestern Nice and doesn't check enough boxes tiresome and just a little bit dangerous.

All of this seems like an attempt to write Buttigieg off as “just another white guy,” standing in the way of more diverse candidates. It’s the Oppression Olympics at its worst: In a battle to prove that one community is more discriminated against than another, we tear each other apart rather than unite in common cause.

Or, as Geneve Thomas-Palmer, the editor of Ann Arbor Community High School's newsletter (and wow! Have high school newsletters changed since I was in bell bottoms!) warns:

"By suggesting Buttigieg appears too heterosexual to run for office, Democrats have sent a clear message to their almost 12 million queer voters; we do not care about diversifying our party, we only care about appearing as though we do."