Pete Buttigieg helps nine-year-old boy come out as gay at campaign rally

Zachary Ro told candidate ‘I want to be brave like you’

At a rally in Denver, Colorado, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg offered advice to a nine-year-old boy who asked him for help coming out.

Mr Buttigieg, who would be the first openly gay president, first read out a note from Zachary Ro, who asked: “Would you help me telling the world that I’m gay too? I want to be brave like you.”

He then invited Zachary onto the stage, where he offered him encouragement and advice. Reflecting on his own experience, Mr Buttigieg told him:

“It took me a long time to figure out how to tell even my best friend that I was gay, let alone to go out there and tell the world.

“And to see you willing to come to terms with who you are in a room full of 1,000 people, thousands of people you’ve never met, that’s really something.”

The candidate also told Zachary that while he might not realise it, coming out can help make others stronger and happier.

“You’ll never know who’s taking their lead from you, who’s watching you and deciding that they can be a little braver because you have been brave.”

Mr Buttigieg has lately been the subject of homophobic remarks from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who questioned whether Americans would accept a gay president over “Mr Man Donald Trump”.

Asked for his reaction to the comments by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, Mr Buttigieg said that Mr Limbaugh “has a different idea of what makes a man than I do.

“The strongest people I know are not the loudest people,” he said. “They’re the ones who have the deepest sense of who they are, and what they value, and what they care about.”

Mr Buttigieg claimed victory in the chaotic Iowa caucuses and came a narrow second behind Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary, but placed a disappointing third in the Nevada caucuses.

He is currently well behind frontrunner Mr Sanders in national polls, where he has yet to break away from the other candidates.