Mayor Pete Faces a Familiar and "Vicious" Enemy in South Carolina: Homophobia

[Celerity]

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wjv97m/mayor-pete-faces-a-familiar-and-vicious-enemy-in-south-carolina-homophobia

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Aliyah Johnson stood petrified for several long seconds, mouth agape, eyes wide, as Mayor Pete Buttigieg walked in the door. When she finally shook off her paralysis, she barreled into his chest for an embrace before breaking into inconsolable sobs. The 19-year-old Columbia resident had been looking in vain for Buttigieg all over the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention. When he made a surprise appearance at a meet-and-greet with black millennials at a bar called Truth, she knew it would be her chance.

She had never met him before, but Johnson needed to tell him her truth: That she had come out as pansexual in May, inspired in part by Buttigieg, who could be the first openly gay president. Her mother, a creationist Baptist, had rejected her completely. “I’m proud of you,” Buttigieg reassured her. “Keep going. You’re doing great.” “He's literally helped me through a lot, even though he hasn't physically helped me,” Johnson later said. “Knowing that there are people like him out there in the world, it's helped me.”

Johnson will vote for Buttigieg. That is assured. But to win the early primary state of South Carolina, Buttigieg will need her mother’s vote too — and the votes of mothers and fathers like her. His candidacy will be a hard sell to any parent who would reject his or her own child because of sexual orientation.

To win the Democratic presidential nomination, it has become critical that a candidate shows the ability to attract older black churchgoers in South Carolina, where six in 10 Democratic primary voters are black and more than half are older than 45. A victory there propelled Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. It saved Clinton’s candidacy in 2016, helping her hold off a challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But Buttigieg is testing the electorate as never before. Even as polls show increasing support for gay rights among segments of the religious population, black churchgoers still lag behind. “We've got to openly deal with the homophobia that still lingers in parts of the black community,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, in an interview in Miami after the first presidential debates last month.

When Sharpton, whose sister is gay, came out in favor of gay marriage in the early 2000s, he said some ministers at churches he’d preached at for decades told him not to come around anymore. He sees Buttigieg’s candidacy as an opportunity to confront that. “I told Pete to be very honest, take that on,” he said. “And I told Pete to bring his husband with him because we have got to break down this barrier, unapologetic.”

ENDURING PREJUDICE

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much more, and a lot of data, at the link above

[bluewater]

1. Thanks for posting this.

K&R

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. If anyone can overcome this prejudice, it's Buttigieg.

And he must, in order to succeed.

I've got my fingers crossed! I hope the black population will give him a fair hearing.

[Celerity]

3. +10000

[Demsrule86]

6. He has been a mayor for almost two terms...and there were issues that were not addressed during this

time...what can he say that can fix this?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. I don't have the details, but he has not been ignoring these issues at all.

He has been working on trying to make things better, but the issues are long-standing and impossible to remedy quickly.

[Meadowoak]

4. Homophobes likely wouldn't vote for a Democrat anyway.

[Celerity]

5. that is not true, if it were, all Democratic voters would poll close to 100% in favour

of LGBTQ rights, including marriage.

They do not poll at such levels.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Inspiring