In his memoir,
Shortest Way Home
, Indiana mayor
Pete Buttigieg
describes his coming out as a process of "becoming one person," adding that he only became "whole" upon meeting his now-husband, Chasten. But he didn't always feel this way about being gay.
At a speaking event on Sunday, Buttigieg, who
launched
a presidential exploratory committee in January and will likely
announce his campaign
proper this weekend, said that he used to wish that he weren't gay, NBC News
reports
.
"If you could have offered me a pill that could make me straight, I would have swallowed it before you could give me a swig of water," said the Mayor of South Bend at a brunch hosted by the Victory Fund, an American political action committee that supports pro-choice
LGBTQ
+ candidates. "It's a hard thing to think about now. If you had shown me exactly what it was that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a knife."
The Democratic hopeful came out in
a 2015 editorial for
The South Bend Tribune
, titled "Why Coming Out Matters." In the middle of a re-election campaign at the time, he ending up winning with
80 percent of the vote
.
"Thank God there was no pill," he continued. "Thank God there was no knife."
Buttigieg, whose campaign has
raised more $7 million
over the past three months, also spoke of his school teacher husband, as well as his one-time boss, former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
"Being married to Chasten has made me a better human being because it has made me more compassionate, more understanding, more self-aware, and more decent," Buttigieg said, per
The Hill
. "My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man. And yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God."
"That's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand," he continued. "That if you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator."
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