The newspaper you hold in your hand has spent the past ten years and 500 issues illuminating LGBT lives, advocating for the causes we find in common, standing up for the rights we hold so dear.

We do so again today.

One year from today, on the first Tuesday in November of 2020, America will get to choose its next president of the U.S. We endorse the candidacy of Pete Buttigieg.

We do not do this simply because Mayor Pete is a gay man and this is a gay paper.

We do this because he is a good man seeking to do great things.

Of course he will have the best interests of the LGBT community in his heart, but he has the spirit of America in his soul.

Pete Buttigieg is the polar opposite of Donald Trump.

He is educated and articulate, reasonable and responsible, committed and conscientious.

To the table, he brings class, not crass; dignity, not disgrace. He is an advocate, not an ass.

Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House threatens our nation daily. His personality is toxic, his patriotism suspect, his politics racist, and his positions on social issues neanderthal. His presence in the White House corrupts the soul of our nation.

From the LGBT community’s standpoint, Donald Trump’s tenure has already compromised social freedoms the LGBT community has won over the last two decades. He threatens to do even worse going forward. The President is turning back time to an America less diverse, less inclusive, less just.

Our country needs a leader who will bring Americans together, not tear us apart. The field of Democratic candidates has a host of such aspirants, each with strengths, all with flaws. No one candidate in an America of 300 million souls will ever be the ‘perfect’ candidate; all things to all people. Remember perfect will always be the enemy of good. This year, however, Mayor Pete does stand out as the most inspirational and aspirational one.

The Mayor of South Bend is asking our citizens, from shore to shore, to believe in hope, not hate. He is asking us to embrace our individuality, not erase it. He appeals to our better angels, not our worst fears.

Pete Buttigieg is a name no one knew or could pronounce a year ago. He is the mayor of a small town in a conservative state. But America is getting to know him. They are finding an honest man with a unifying voice; a man who addresses problems instead of creating them. Mayor Pete will build bridges, not walls.

Pete Buttigieg is a young man with modern ideas, instead of an old one with bone spurs in his brain.

He is a Rhodes scholar who speaks in eight languages instead of in four letter words.

He is a soldier who was firing guns at terrorists while Donald Trump was firing Omarosa on a reality TV show.

Pete Buttigieg is authentic, genuine, and real. He has turned adversity into strength and challenge into character. Our country deserves a citizen with courage and a conscience at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Our newspaper understands that not all gays and lesbians speak with one voice. We represent a range of personalities and politics. A rainbow is a bouquet of many colors. Pete Buttigieg, however, is a candidate who will represent them all.

SFGN celebrates as well the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Corey Booker. Indeed, any of the Democratic candidates for the presidency would do a better job than the man renting the space now. All will represent our interests honorably and capably.

Today, however, we come down on the side of Mayor Pete. He has made us proud, and will make our country stronger. He is one of us who speaks for all of us. He is proof for all of us there is no bridge too far; that we are only limited by the boundaries of our imagination.

Let us not coronate next November a corrupt king. Let us pass the torch to a new generation of Americans, multi-cultural and diverse, inclusive and rich with life, visionary with grace, and mindful of the tomorrow future generations face.

Can the LGBT community help win the World Series of politics in 2020? This is a century which began first with the Boston Red Sox winning it in 2004, the Chicago Cubs in 2015, and now the Washington Nationals in 2019. Each team waited nearly a hundred years, or even more. It can happen to us too.

Everything cometh to he who waiteth so long as he who waiteth worketh like hell whilst he waiteth.

If a man stands by his convictions, and there abides, eventually the whole world will come around to him. Maybe it’s our turn. Why not?

Norm's story was featured in SFGN's December Mirror:

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