Buttigieg Says Anti-LGBTQ Attacks Are Distraction from GOP’s “Radical Policies”
metroweekly.comU.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg slammed Republicans over their repeated attacks against the LGBTQ community, claiming that conservative politicians are seeking to exploit populist anger over culture-war issues in order to distract from the more unpopular parts of their party’s platform.Speaking to MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing during an on-air interview on Tuesday, Buttigieg offered an explanation for what appears to be an onslaught of attacks targeting the LGBTQ community or displays of LGBTQ visibility.“I think it’s being done out of the perception that it is politically convenient to target vulnerable groups,” Buttigieg said of the GOP attacks, which take the form of both screeds by anti-LGBTQ pundits and legislation seeking to restrict LGBTQ rights or censor expressions of LGBTQ identity.In the past six months, more than 75 anti-LGBTQ bills have been signed into law in more than 20 states, prompting theHuman Rights Campaign to declare a national state of emergency for LGBTQ Americans.
These bills include four “Don’t Say Gay” bills, seven bills requiring schools to “out” LGBTQ students to their parents, and over fifteen that ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care. “I think where [this slew of bills and hateful rhetoric] largely comes from is folks who don’t want to talk about why they were against the infrastructure loans, building roads and bridges,” Buttigieg continued. “They don’t want to talk about why they were against $35 insulin that the president delivered for Medicare recipients.
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