The husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg furiously attacked Congresswoman Lauren Boebert as a hypocrite for tweeting about her support of fathers for Father’s Day after she previously mocked Mr Buttigieg for taking paternity leave.
Chasten Buttigieg tweeted his scathing remark at Ms Boebert on Wednesday, highlighting the congresswoman’s Father’s Day Twitter message while noting that she had found the time to join in the homophobic mockery of his husband while their adopted infant son was still hospitalised months after his birth.
“Our two-month-old son was on a ventilator at the children's hospital when you attacked my husband for being with his family. I watched him take calls and Zooms from our hospital room all day, managing crisis after crisis while our son's heart monitor beeped in the background,” he tweeted.
Democrats, most often progressives, have savaged the Republican right wing for its stated desire to protect families that often clashes with the actual actions of its elected representatives. The line of criticism has extended across a broad range of issues as left-leaning politicians and activists alike have met GOP figures with accusations of espousing “pro-life” views while opposing a wide range of efforts to help families in need from food stamps to free childcare to most recently the concept of paternity leave.
Mr Buttigieg, who serves in the Cabinet of President Joe Biden, was roundly mocked by the far right in recent months after he announced he would take paternity leave to help care for his new infant son.
Ms Boebert is no stranger to off-colour remarks and has made numerous homophobic, Islamophobic and racist comments in the past. She was most recently forced to apologise in November after making a racist and Islamophobic comment about a fellow congresswoman, Ilhan Omar.
The issue of supporting families presents an awkward conflict for the far right and Republicans as maternity and paternity leave are generally popular concepts and were pushed (unsuccessfully) as an issue of bipartisan compromise under the Trump administration as the pet issue of the president’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Mr Buttigieg’s infant son came home from the hospital in November after what the couple described as a “terrifying” few weeks of repeated hospital stays.
