At a forum hosted by The Washington
Post, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor
of South Bend, Indiana, insisted the United States was “absolutely”
ready for a gay president.
The 37-year-old Buttigieg has risen
dramatically in recent polls in early voting states such as Iowa and
New Hampshire.
Friday's candidate forum was hosted by
national politics reporter Robert Costa.
Buttigieg pointed out that he was
reelected mayor in 2015 with 80 percent of the vote shortly after he
came out gay.
“Mike Pence was the governor of
Indiana, no mayor of Indiana had ever come out, and so there was no
way really to know what to expect,” said Buttigieg, who has
previously criticized Pence's opposition to LGBT rights.
When Costa noted that South Bend is a
small, heavily Democratic city, Buttigieg countered: “If it can
happen in Mike Pence's Indiana, it can happen anywhere in this
nation.”
Buttigieg also said that he was
“bothered” that President Donald Trump during a recent rally said
that he dreams of him.
“I will admit that it did bother me
when he said that he dreams about me,” Buttigieg said to chuckles.
“I don't know what exactly goes on, but I am certain that I want
absolutely nothing to do with them.”