PA ImagesA nine-year-old boy asked for the help of Democrat Pete Buttigieg – the first openly gay candidate to run for the US presidency – in telling the world ‘I’m gay too’ at a recent rally.
Young Zachary Ro joined Buttigieg onstage at a campaign rally in Aurora, Denver, on Saturday night, February 22.
Picked out totally by chance, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold stood next to Zachary as she read out his presubmitted question: ‘Thank you for being so brave. Would you help me tell the world I’m gay too? I want to be brave like you.’
Powerful moment (better audio): 9 year old Zachary Ro of Lone Tree asks @PeteButtigieg how he can be brave and tell people he is gay too pic.twitter.com/1aUbYM8cDM
— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) February 23, 2020
Buttigieg commended the young lad for his bravery in managing to buck up the courage to talk about his sexuality in front of ‘thousands of people you’ve never met’.
He told Zachary:
Well, I don’t think you need a lot of advice from me on bravery. You seem pretty strong. 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 and tell the world. To see you willing to come to terms with who you are in a room full of a thousand people, thousands of people you’ve never met, that’s really something.
It won’t always be easy, but that’s OK because you know who you are. And that’s really important because when you know who you are, you have a center of gravity that can hold you together when all kinds of chaos is happening around you.
Buttigieg was also careful to note how important Zachary’s question was, saying that his actions might encourage others like him to ‘be a little braver because you have been brave’.
I caught up with 9 year old Zachary after he was brought on stage and asked @PeteButtigieg his question. His dad told me off camera he was proud of his son. pic.twitter.com/CsO60aQiUh
— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) February 23, 2020
He added:
When I was trying to figure out who I was, I was afraid that who I was might mean that I could never make a difference and what wound up happening instead is that it’s a huge part of the different I get to make. And the last thing I want you to know is even if I can’t promise it’ll always be easy, I can promise you that I’m going to be rooting for you.
As Zachary was brought onto and off the stage, people standing in the audience chanted: ‘Love means love!’
PA ImagesAs it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to write down a question in the first place, Zachary was initially ‘kind of nervous, excited, proud’ about taking to the stage. In an interview with The Colorado Sun soon after Buttigieg’s rally ended, Zachary said: ‘It was exciting, and I felt really happy. I was glad I was able to tell everyone in the audience that I’m gay.’
The rally marked Buttigieg’s first stop after Saturday’s Nevada caucuses – he came third with 14% of the vote behind Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.