It was the biggest weekend for gay rights in Iowa, and Democratic candidates for president were snapping pictures downtown with potential caucusgoers, dressed in rainbow apparel for the Capital City Pride event.

Pete Buttigieg, who would become the first openly gay president if elected, was at a house party just a few miles away, talking about public education.

Buttigieg joined the Pride festivities for a speech marking the 10-year anniversary of the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that recognized same-sex marriage, but he left quickly to drive north to a rural part of the state. Buttigieg's next speech would focus on issues like veterans' rights and faith.

It’s not that Buttigieg isn't highlighting the historic significance of his run — the South Bend, Indiana, mayor repeatedly talks about his sexual orientation on the campaign trail, and he often tells audiences he’s best known as “the husband of Chasten.”

But Buttigieg is also trying to move beyond that single defining characteristic with voters.

"I am proud of who I am," Buttigieg told the Des Moines Register. "I’m certainly very proud of my marriage and my husband. We don’t shy away from that. It’s also not the only thing that defines me."

“I think some people have an image of what a gay person or an LGBTQ activist is supposed to look like. And I think if you’ve met one gay person, you’ve met one gay person,” he said. “We have different styles and different approaches. But what I try to do is just be who I am … I don’t know who else to be."

Who he is, according to a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom/CNN Iowa Poll, is a candidate near the top of a crowded Democratic presidential field. The poll, conducted in early June, shows that, while former Vice President Joe Biden leads the pack of more than 20 candidates, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Buttigieg are in close competition for second place. The poll had a 4% margin of error for those questions.

Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said it’s a sign of the times.

“No one is acting like this is the defining thing about Pete Buttigieg,” said Price, who is also gay and will not endorse during the primary. “… It’s great that we have come so far in this society that it’s actually unremarkable that a gay man can run for president.”

The Iowa Poll in June found that 62% of likely Democratic caucusgoers believe that if the Democratic candidate were gay it would make no difference in facing Republican President Donald Trump. In the poll, just 28% said being gay would be a disadvantage.

The poll, taken June 2-5, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points for those questions. It was conducted by Selzer & Co.

Not being 'the gay candidate'

The 37-year-old Buttigieg went to Howard County after the Pride festivities because it has the unique distinction of being the only county in America to vote by more than 20 percentage points for President Barack Obama in 2012 before doing the same for Trump in 2016.

The campaign schedule, which included a stop in Mason City to talk about the state’s skilled workforce shortage, reflects a candidate who doesn’t want to be known as the “gay candidate,” said Matt McCoy, a former state senator who was the first openly gay Iowa lawmaker more than 15 years ago. McCoy hasn't endorsed a candidate yet but said he is leaning toward Buttigieg.

"One of the traps in coming out publicly is to be 'the gay state senator' or 'the gay candidate.' And not only do people innocently put you in boxes, but your opponents also want to put you in boxes," McCoy said. "I just don’t think Pete wants to be put in a box."

Fred Karger knows that better than most. During the 2012 election cycle, the 69-year-old California consultant made history as an openly gay Republican presidential candidate.

Karger said he was often asked about his sexuality on the campaign trail because of the novelty of his candidacy. He remembers reading headlines that often began with descriptions of him as a gay candidate. Karger appeared on several states' caucus or primary ballots, including Iowa's, but was not included in any of the pre-primary debates.

“Like Pete, that didn’t define me — it was a part of me,” said Karger, who has endorsed Buttigieg.

Members of the LGBTQ community this year don’t want to be boxed in on who they might support. Cindy Pollard and Gayla Snook, a married lesbian couple from Newton, renewed their vows in a public ceremony during the 2019 Pride festivities.

Pollard and Snook like Buttigieg, but they’re also impressed with Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

“There’s a lot of great people, but they’ve got to resonate within,” Snook said. “Being a gay man isn’t the only thing.”

A coming out story

In homes, town halls and rallies around Iowa over several months, Buttigieg nearly always shares the story of how he came out in a 2015 newspaper op-ed when he was 33 years old.

Buttigieg said his deployment to Afghanistan in 2014 as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve played a big part. The deployment prompted him to write a letter to his parents that they could find if he was killed in action. That convinced Buttigieg he wanted to live a life that included falling in love.

The story often elicits applause that he went on to win reelection as mayor that year, and includes Buttigieg meeting his husband through a dating app. They married one year ago in June, during Pride week in South Bend.

Buttigieg has begun using poignant words to describe some of the anguish surrounding his decision to come out.

“There was a time in my life when I would have cut the gay out of me if I knew how,” Buttigieg told a crowd at a scholarship awards ceremony June 7 in Des Moines honoring Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming college student who authorities say was killed for being gay in 1998.

At the dinner in Iowa, Buttigieg added: “And yet, now I know this fact about me: This unexpected, complicated gift — that was not my idea, but my Creator's — is helping me do some good in the world.”

That good was reflected on the face of Louis Peckys, a gay 18-year-old scholarship recipient from Illinois who watched Buttigieg’s speech.

“He was really cool,” Peckys said. “The fact that he came out and still managed to get reelected shows a brighter future for people who are LGBTQ running for office.”

Cara Leadingham, Peckys’ mother, put it another way: “As a parent, it gives you hope that your kid’s going to be accepted and can find success, even in small-town USA.”

'More interested in ideas'

Buttigieg said if he’s somehow shifted his approach in talking about being gay, it’s not conscious. An inclusion theme has crystallized in his speeches when Buttigieg criticizes Trump’s policies and their impact on marginalized people.

Buttigieg mentions equity issues for the LGBTQ community in the same breath that he highlights protecting women’s reproductive rights, countering racism and addressing immigration.

"My idea of what a healthy identity politics looks like is for each identity to connect with every other one — for all of us to find ways to relate to each other, based on our own experience. And so, at a moment when, for very different reasons, Americans of color, women, LGTBQ Americans and others feel like they’re under attack, all the more reason for us to find ways to stand up for each other," he said.

Karger said he believes America is ready to elect a gay president.

“They're more interested in the issues and the ideas … there’s so many more factors that will weigh in to the general election when Pete’s the nominee than being gay," Karger said. "And yes, it's going to cost him votes. But yes, it'll also gain him votes.”