It's sad how much Pete Buttigieg has been taking unapologetic homophobic attacks from Republican politicians and operatives. Remember when the bridge collapsed in Baltimore? According to several senior GOP leaders, Buttigieg contributed to the problem because he was an "unqualified diversity hire" who is serving as Secretary of Transportation only because he's gay — apparently to fill some sort of DEI quota in the Biden administration.

(The reality is that Buttigieg is secretary of transportation because he was a credible Democratic primary candidate who bowed out at the right time to make room for the leading candidate. Of course he got a cabinet post. That's how the system works.)

But the right deriding him as a "diversity hire" is the least of it. The same right-wing voices constantly mock him for being gay, for having children while gay, for caring personally for his children, etc — with strong homophobic innuendo and sometimes with actual, undisguised homophobic slurs.

The mere act of holding his rather unglamorous office (quick, try to name any other secretary of transportation!) has made Buttigieg a lighting rod of controversy in conservative America. People go after him as hard as they can, on the slimmest of pretext, explicitly because he's gay.

Is that not reason enough for a little solidarity on the left?

Look, I have all sorts of gay friends. Many of them completely reject heteronormativity. Yet some of them get married anyway for practical reasons. Some other of my gay friends really want a picket fence life. They want a monogamous husband, a pretty house, maybe some kids, etc.

If that's what they want, then I'm happy if that's what they get. We all get to want what we want. Right? We're all products of our society and our upbringing. None of us gets shaped in exactly the same way, and all of us dream, yearn, and live as best we can.

Queer liberation is supposed to mean the freedom to live as we choose — ideally, the freedom to translate our our authentic wants into action without societal restriction.

Hating on Pete Buttigieg because his authentic wants are different from somebody else's wants is a betrayal, in my opinion, of queer ideals. Or perhaps more precisely, it's a conflation. People conflate promoting particular queer ways of living with the need to oppose those who don't want to live that way.

No, thank you!

I'm no fan of heteronormativity, personally. I've never lived monogamously, etc., but I don't have any business trying to dictate how other people live. Or I shouldn't! None of us should.

Pete Buttigieg has consistently stood up for queer people of all stripes. He insists we should have the right to live as we choose.

Doesn't he deserve the same?