President-elect Joe Biden is nominating Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary. If approved by the Senate, he will become the first out LGBTQ cabinet secretary.
Buttigieg is the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who ran as the first openly gay presidential candidate to participate in the debates and win delegates. Serving in the cabinet will give Buttigieg federal government experience should he decide to run for president again. He’s seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party.
Buttigieg will be the first LGBTQ person Biden has nominated. More are expected in a variety of sub-cabinet positions.
“Pete’s nomination is a new milestone in a decades-long effort to ensure LGBTQ people are represented throughout our government — and its impact will reverberate well-beyond the department he will lead,” said Victory fund CEO Annise Parker. “It distances our nation from a troubled legacy of barring out LGBTQ people from government positions and moves us closer to the President-elect’s vision of a government that reflects America. As an out LGBTQ person, Pete will bring a unique perspective that will inform and influence policy throughout the federal government. Most important, however, is that Pete will bring his intellect and energy to the Department of Transportation and our nation will be better off because of it.”
— David Taffet
This is misleading reporting that fails to mention that President Trump appointed the first openly LGBT member of a cabinet. Richard Grenell was appointed Director of National Intelligence, a cabinet level position. Why does the Voice omit this important distinction in their reporting.?
The truth is…” Buttigieg would be the second openly gay cabinet member following acting intelligence director Richard Grenell, who led the intelligence community for three months this year.”
https://nypost.com/2020/12/15/biden-picks-buttigieg-for-transportation-secretary-reports/
TYPICAL FAKE NEWS ! Trump already has a gay cabinet member
Actually, if you read the blog again, it says Buttigieg would become “the first out LGBTQ cabinet secretary.” Grenell was not a cabinet secretary. He was acting director of U.S. national intelligence, which is a cabinet-level position but is not a cabinet “secretary.”
You are wrong, Tammye.
All members of a cabinet are “cabinet secretaries” regardless of whether or not the word “secretary” appears in their title.
The Attorney General is a cabinet secretary. The Director of National Intelligence is a cabinet secretary. The Surgeon General is a cabinet secretary.
Why does the Voice go through such linguistic gymnastics to misleadingly portray Buttigieg as the first openly LGBT cabinet secretary when Richard Grenell was in fact the first gay cabinet member in U.S. history?
In every reference I have found, Grenell’s temporary position as acting director of the national intelligence is described as a “cabinet-level” position. Not as a cabinet secretary. There is also the fact that Grenell’s appointment was, indeed, only temporary and he was never confirmed by the Senate.
The simple fact remains that Richard Grenell was the first openly LGBT member of a presidential cabinet in U.S. history, not Pete Buttigieg, as the Dallas Voice misleadingly reports.
“Media outlets called out for touting Buttigieg as first openly gay Cabinet member, ‘whitewashing’ Ric Grenell”
https://www.foxnews.com/media/pete-buttigieg-first-openly-gay-cabinet-member-grenell
If you do a search of the Dallas Voice website you will find that we reported on Mitt Romney choosing Richard Grenell as the foreign policy expert for his presidential campaign in April 2012 and how Grenell resigned just two weeks later after he was attacked by right-wingers for being gay. We also reported on Grenell in September 2017 when Trump named him as ambassador to Germany and again the following April when he was finally confirmed as ambassador. And in February of this year, when Trump named Grenell as acting director of national intelligence, including reporting that he was the first openly-LGBTQ person named to a cabinet-level position. So no, nobody at Dallas Voice has tried to whitewash “Ric” Grenell.
Nowhere in this article that the Voice published, on which we are commenting, ever even mentions Richard Grenell’s name. The average, casual reader of this post would have no idea that Pete Buttigieg was not the first openly LGBT member of a presidential cabinet. That mild omission is by design to minimize anything positive that President Trump did in relations to LGBT issues.
A publication that truly wanted their readers to be as fully informed as possible would not have omitted Richard Grenell from an article touting Buttigieg’s appointment to Biden’ cabinet.
Tammye,, with respect I ask you to please get off your liberal democrat high horse. Trump lost, you got your wish. No need to be a contributor any longer in this tit for tat game democrats insist on play.
Regards,
gaytrumpsupporter
Minimizing the achievements of conservative gays while exaggerating the accomplishments of liberal and progressive gays, betrays the bias of those distorting public perception of those events.
Had Richard Grenell been a Democrat appointed to be a member of a presidential cabinet by a Democratic President, it would have been widely and loudly reported by the mainstream and LGBT media. Instead the average LGBT person on the street has never heard of Richard Grenell, but knows all too much about Pete Buttigieg.
The truth stings, which is why it probably irks the editors of the Voice so much that they are being justly criticized by their conservative readers for their overt bias against conservative ideas and those who hold them. The late Dennis Vercher, longtime former editor of the Voice, bent over backwards to be kind and fair to conservative and Republican gays, the current editors of the Voice proudly wear their disdain and contempt for their ideological opponents on their sleeves, without the slightest hint of irony.
Once again. We have reported on all of Richard Grenell’s accomplishments and appointments as they happened. Do more people know who Pete Buttigieg is? Yes. He ran a viable and high profile presidential campaign. Of course more people know him. But you claiming Dallas Voice has ignored Grenell’s accomplishments and appointments is just plain wrong. We reported on Buttigieg’s appointment most recently because it happened most recently. You are welcome to criticize Dallas Voice. if we wanted to squash your criticism, we would delete your comments. You are also welcome to submit op-ed commentaries and letters to the editor. As I told Gay Trump Supporter, all we require is that you use your actual name.
With all due respect, seriously, Tammye…
You are a well educated, and accomplished award winning journalist. You are not a dishonest player in the game of journalism. In you’re own columns and comments that have been published in the Voice, you, David Taffet, and Arnold Wayne Jones, have made it perfectly clear that you all are ideologically liberal and vote, consistently, as Democrats. This is a wonderful, and a true testament to how far “We have come. “
However you must be suffering from TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, to actually believe that the Voice now reports on the entire experience of the lives of LGBT persons with no bias towards the dogmatic version of what the LGBT experience should be.
Just re-read your “columns”. You and the entire current staff of the Voice are in lock- step with the current Orwellian, Khafka-esque version of the LGBT experience.
https://getoutspoken.com/liberals/buttigieg-gets-tapped-and-left-wing-media-rewrites-history
The Dallas Voice pats itself on the back for not deleting the thoughtful, respectful comments of dissenting readers, as if if this should not be the norm for any online news publication. Then, the editor invites dissenting ope-ed’s, as long as the identity of the writer is fully disclosed. The Voice must be completely unaware of the rich tradition in our country of publishing controversial viewpoints under a pen name… Hello “Poor Richard” aka Benjamin Franklin.
A brief review of the social media posts of the staff of the Voice paint a picture of self-righteous, sanctimonious hate filled elitists who sincerely believe that conservatives and Republicans are “evil.”
Have a few cocktails and engage in real conversation with the folks on the strip, and you quickly find much more diversity of viewpoint, ideology, and perspective than the Voice could ever invent in their wildest dreams. We, as LGBT folks in Texas are done a real disservice by the Voice’s biased, liberal reporting.