Former presidential candidate Pete
Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, appeared on GLAAD's
online Together In Pride event on Sunday.
Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign
was historic. He won the Iowa caucuses and held the delegate lead for
a short time before former Vice President Joe Biden's
come-from-behind victory in South Carolina.
Buttigieg said that the campaign would
have to change in response to COVID-19.
“This is not the first time there's
had to be a big change in campaigning,” he said. “It is the first
that it has had to happen so fast. … But it is still absolutely
critical that we reach out and motivate each other to vote because
our rights are up for debate.”
Billy Eichner, who hosted the event,
noted that there was an older generation who were “proud and
excited” about Buttigieg's campaign and a “much younger LGBT
generation who don't feel that same sense of connection to you simply
because you're gay.”
Buttigieg said that he appreciated both
views.
“I saw and was so moved by that same
thing you’re talking about where people, especially from an older
generation, sometimes would come up to me and couldn’t form words,
they’d tear up and I knew what it was they were saying,” he said.
“It was very humbling to hear that they were moved to think about
my candidacy in the context of that struggle. Because that’s a
struggle I don’t even fully understand. And to even be able to do
this, for Chasten and me to be married, certainly for me to be an out
candidate, we are standing on their shoulders. There was something so
powerful about that.”
“You know there’s one generation
that’s astonished there can even be a candidate and they have the
freedom to vote for a candidate who’s queer. For others it may have
been empowering to be able to be queer and not vote for a candidate
who is queer. On some level, I get that. I just hope that people can
have whatever their political views are and not be mean. I don’t
believe we need to add any more meanness to this world,” he
continued.