Just in time for St. Valentine's Day, The Washington Post published this morning a piece headlined, "Trump allies take aim at Buttigieg’s sexuality, a possible sign of things to come."
The article launches from a recent quote from Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee Rush Limbaugh: “They’re sitting there and they’re looking at Mayor Pete — a 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage. And they’re saying, okay, how’s this going to look, a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband onstage next to Mr. Man Donald Trump? What’s going to happen there?” (Buttigieg actually is 38.)
The obvious answer is, it's going to look like two men who love each other exchanging a restrained kiss in front of a large number of people in a public venue. That's about it. The Buttigiegs, Pete and Chasten, were married June 16, 2018, at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. James in South Bend.
What I found more interesting was Limbaugh's characterization of the president as "Mr. Man" and the implied characteristics the ailing right-wing pundit attributes to a real heterosexual man of a certain age --- fat, unattractive, not especially bright, rude, aging sexual predator inclined to grope people of the opposite gender.
Is this the way aging heterosexual males envision themselves? I don't know.
It seems unlikely to me that sexual orientation will be an issue among a majority of 2020 voters. It could affect some Democrats who entertain the false hope of attracting Republicans and independents with a candidate who offers a more benign example of aging male pulchritude. And of course the president's evangelical Christian base will continue to fantasize; there's very little the rest of us can do about that.
But love is love --- without regard to gender or sexual orientation.
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