Buttigieg responds to Johnson’s same-sex marriage views: ‘Maybe we’ll just have him over’

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (D) suggested Thursday that he might invite House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to witness his home life with husband Chasten and their twin toddlers, in light of Johnson’s views on same-sex marriage.

In the days since he was elected Speaker, Johnson’s anti-LGBTQ statements and views have come to light, including a column CNN uncovered, from 2004, in which he wrote “[e]xperts project that homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”

On “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” Thursday, Colbert asked Buttigieg about working with someone who would write something like that.

The secretary said the answer may be simply for him to get a glimpse of his household, which he said shows “the love of God.”

“I’ll work with anybody who can help us get good transportation available to the American people, but I don’t know, maybe we’ll just have him over, ‘cause our little house isn’t that far from the Capitol,” Buttigieg, who shares twin toddlers with his husband, Chasten, said on the show. 

Buttigieg described an average day in his home, complete with day care pickups, diaper changes and a rush to feed their toddlers dinner.

“Everything about that is chaos,” Buttigieg said, “but nothing about that is dark.”

Johnson has faced recent criticism for his anti-LGBTQ statements and views since he ascended to the Speakership. Last week, in response to criticism he faced for past statements on same-sex marriage, he described himself as a “rule of law guy.” He also acknowledged that the 2015 Supreme Court opinion in the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that states must allow and recognize same-sex marriages made it “the law of the land.”

“I made a career defending the rule of law. I respect the rule of law,” Johnson said on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. “When the Supreme Court issued the Obergefell opinion, that became the law of the land, OK.”