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"Our family deserves to be protected," Pete Buttigieg said. "It deserves to be supported just like every American family."
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s got candid during a recent visit to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert about Speaker Mike Johnson, the relatively unknown Republican Louisiana lawmaker who was elected speaker after California Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted. He later doubled down on highlighting Johnson’s extreme views during an appearance on CNN Friday.
During a Thursday interview on The Late Show, Buttigieg opened up about his family life and offered a subtle suggestion in response to the newly elected speaker's known anti-LGBTQ+ stances. Colbert brought up the ideological differences between Buttigieg, a gay Democrat, and Johnson, an ultra-conservative lawmaker known for his archaic views on homosexuality.
“His record on LGBTQ issues is, what’s the word? Awful,” Colbert said. “So how do you work with a guy who argued that same-sex relations are the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic?”
Johnson has previously promoted conversion therapy and made derogatory remarks about the LGBTQ+ community, including labeling homosexuality as a choice and a “type of behavior” individuals can change and blaming the fall of the Roman Empire on homosexuals.
In a light yet impactful response, Buttigieg proposed a personal approach to fostering understanding. He stated, “...maybe we’ll just have ’em over because our little house isn’t that far from the capitol. And if he could see what it’s like when I come home from work and Chasten’s bringing the kids home from daycare or vice versa...”
“The Love of God is in That Household” - Sec. Buttigieg Invites Speaker Johnson Over For Dinnerwww.youtube.com
Buttigieg continued to describe his wholesome family dynamics, “...one of us is getting the mac and cheese ready and the other one’s microwaving those little freezer meatballs that are a great cheat code... Everything about that is chaos. But nothing about that is dark. That’s the love of God in that household.”
The discussion concerning Johnson’s out-of-mainstream views on homosexuality continued on CNN, where anchor John Berman played a clip of Johnson discussing his past remarks and opinions about gay people.
Johnson had previously said, “Homosexual behavior is something you do. It’s not something that you are.”
Johnson, addressing the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in the clip from an episode of Hannity, remarked, “I respect the rule of law, but I also genuinely love all people regardless of their lifestyle choices.”
Responding to Johnson’s comment, Buttigieg said, “Look, I’ve often said if being gay was a choice, that was a choice that was made way above my pay grade. But my lifestyle is that I’m a dad. I’m a married father of two, a beautiful boy and girl, twins two years old. And our family deserves to be protected. It deserves to be supported just like every American family."
Buttigieg added, "It’s a little bit difficult driving the family minivan to drop our kids off at daycare, passing the dome of the Capitol, knowing that the Speaker of the House sitting under that dome doesn’t even think our family ought to exist.”
