SF protest against Buttigieg
The Bay Area Reporter noted that activists from Queers Against Pete showed up at the candidate's big bucks San Francisco fundraiser February 14 ["SF Buttigieg event protested," February 20]. You didn't mention that protesters inside the room were escorted out. Buttigieg's campaign isn't big on free speech, in any sense of the word. (Just to get in the room cost $250 and up; he's backed by some 40 billionaires, according to Forbes.) Expelling protesters is a pattern with him. While he was speaking at Keene State College in New Hampshire, a single health care activist outside the auditorium passed out leaflets on Medicare for All. The activist was confronted by a Buttigieg campaign official who told him he'd be arrested if he didn't leave. When the activist continued passing out fliers, the official returned with a campus policeman, followed by two Keene city police. The staffer stood behind them as the cops threatened the activist with arrest for trespassing and handed him an order not to set foot on campus for a year (https://bit.ly/2v3UEgW).
Queers Against Pete got it right: this friend of billionaires — husband, churchgoer, veteran — is no friend to most of us. Fit into his spotlessly respectable world or be banished. How ironic that the first openly gay Democratic candidate for president won't tolerate difference.
Jay Lyon
San Francisco