White House Demands Pence Apologize for “Homophobic Joke”

metroweekly.com:

joked about President Joe Biden, several Republicans expected to run for president in 2024, and even made blistering comments about his former boss, former President Donald Trump.Pence then trained his sights on his fellow Hoosier, quipping that if Biden doesn’t run for re-election, there’s “Pete Buttigieg, who’s an old friend of mine.”Buttigieg, who previously served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, when Pence was governor of the state, has previously attacked Pence’s alleged homophobia and his support for a since-amended “religious freedom” law that critics said, in its original version, would have allowed blatant discrimination against LGBTQ people.“When Pete’s two children were born,” Pence continued, “he took two months’ maternity leave, where upon thousands of travelers were stranded in airports, the air traffic system shut down, airplanes nearly collided in midair.“I mean, Pete Buttigieg is the only person in human history to have a child and all the rest of us get postpartum depression.”Buttigieg took two months of paternity leave shortly after adopting twins with his husband, Chasten, in September 2021, prompting right-wing pundits to criticize him for doing so.The White House did not take kindly to the joke, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre taking aim at Pence in a statement.“The former vice president’s homophobic joke about Secretary Buttigieg was offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline,” Jean-Pierre said. “He should apologize to women and LGBTQ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”In August 2022, Buttigieg revealed in a Medium post that the twins were born prematurely and had to.