Openly gay Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg pushed back Sunday against recent homophobic comments from conservative radio personalities as he rises to become a 2020 front-runner.
Rush Limbaugh last week mused on his nationally syndicated broadcast about Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, as a "gay guy kissing his husband on stage, next to Mr. Man, Donald Trump. What's going to happen there?" The comment drew bipartisan criticism.
"I'm not going to take lectures on family values from the likes of Rush Limbaugh or anybody who supports Donald J. Trump as the moral as well as political leader of the United States," Buttigieg, 38, said on "Fox News Sunday."
Separately, on CNN's "State of the Union," Buttigieg said, "I love my husband. I'm faithful to my husband. On stage, we usually just go for a hug, but I love him very much."
Buttigieg and Chasten Glezman were married in 2018. Limbaugh, 69, is on his fourth marriage.
Also last week Sebastian Gorka, a former White House aide to Trump who's now a conservative radio and television commentator, said it was "strange" that a gay man was "lecturing us about the sanctity of life in the womb."
Buttigieg said he was confident his sexuality wouldn't derail his presidential prospects.
"America has moved on, and we should have a politics of belonging that welcomes everybody," Buttigieg said on Fox. "I am saddened for what the Republican Party has become if they embrace that kind of homophobic rhetoric."