Shake it off

WATCH: Pete Buttigieg and his fans shrug off anti-gay hecklers at recent public events

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Pete Buttigieg, anti-gay, heckler
(image via CNN Politics)

Now that he’s officially running for president, the anti-gay hecklers are coming for Pete Buttigieg. Luckily, the unflappable candidate and his supporters are merely shrugging them off with cool-headed enthusiasm and style.

Joe.My.God reports that Christian activist Randall Terry has promised to protest five of Buttigieg’s upcoming campaign stops in Iowa.  Terry, who has a gay adopted son and wants to criminalize all forms of birth control, wrote, “I am enraged by what [Buttigieg] is really doing. He is a baby-killing politician, who is recruiting young people into homosexual bondage by his example, and trying to normalize what is an intrinsically evil behavior.”

This conservative criticism of Buttigieg is rooted in his comments that perhaps we should re-consider letting a bunch of old white men dictate all reproductive rights laws for women.

Anyway, at a recent Iowa campaign stop, after mentioning his marriage to his husband Chasten Buttigieg, a white male heckler with greying hair asked, “Grandparents, do you want your grandchildren following his example?”

Watch a video of the heckler below:

We’re unsure if by “following his example” the protestor meant Pete’s serving in the military, becoming a city’s mayor or running for president of the U.S. All three are kinda stressful, so no, maybe some grandparents wouldn’t want their grandkids following his example.

The heckler continued, “God loves us. God loves us, but he stands for the murder of unborn babies.”

Yeah, you know us gays… always standing for the murder of unborn babies. And brunch. We like brunch too.

Related: Mayor Pete Buttigieg tears it up on piano and guitar, and the crowd goes wild

The heckler was led away as he continued yammering, his holy finger gesturing in the air. Meanwhile, Buttigieg quipped, “Coffee after church gets a little rowdy sometimes,” pointing towards the possibly over-caffeinated zealot.

Buttigieg continued:

“That gentleman believes that what he’s doing is in line with the will of the creator. I view it differently. We ought to be able to view it differently and never question one another’s right to be American. America’s most elegant feature is the ability to accommodate such passionately different views and not budge from our values and still come into the public space in a spirit of respect and getting things done — but we don’t have that in Washington right now, do we?”

Another heckler at a second campaign stop stood up amid an outdoor crowd and started calling Buttigieg “baby killer” and shouted repeatedly, “Remember Sodom and Gomorrah,” a reference to the two Biblical towns burned down for inhospitality (not homosexuality as some would have you believe).

The crowd wasn’t having it, and began chanting “Pete!” while drowning out the heckler’s ranting. Buttigieg himself responded, “The condition of my soul is in the hands of God, but the Iowa caucuses are up to you.” The crowd cheered at his response.

If anything, these low-level hecklers are just a warm up for the big-money conservative Christians and and anti-LGBTQ Republican heavy hitters awaiting his journey on the road to the White House.

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