Right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson, a frequent opponent of LGBT+ rights, has targeted US presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in his latest bizarre rant.

Jackson, a former Republican candidate for the US senate in Virginia, said Buttigieg as president would turn the US into a “homocracy” and shout down conservative Christian media, like his own radio show, The Awakening.

On April 16 episode of the programme, Jackson said: “If someone like Buttigieg were to get elected … we would be on the defence, there is no question about it.

“Somebody like that would go to the FCC and say, ‘You’ve got to crackdown on these networks and radio stations.’

“As much as these LGBT activists say that I want a theocracy, which I don’t, because I don’t want to see them punished or put them in jail for what they’re doing, I want to see them converted … But I guarantee they’d love to see you or me punished or put in jail. We don’t want a theocracy, but I guarantee you they want a homocracy.”

Who is Pete Buttigieg?

In 2016, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote a profile on a young gay Midwestern man.

Bruni praised his work as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and asked if he could eventually be elected as ‘the first gay president.’

Pete Buttigieg announced his 2020 campaign on 14 April. He is an openly gay, multilingual mayor. 

Born in South Bend, Buttigieg was valedictorian at his high school, Saint Joseph, and went onto attend Harvard College. Majoring in history and literature, he then studied for a master’s at Oxford University in the UK.

Just over 74% of South Bend citizens elected him as their mayor in 2011.

He can speak Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Dari, and French.