GUESS WHO

Fox News host unleashes homophobic attack on Pete Buttigieg

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
October 15, 2021

Des Moines, Iowa - September 21, 2019: Pete Buttigieg, Democratic presidential candidate, speaks to the crowd at a political rally.

New dads in Japan can take 35 weeks off with full pay for paternity leave. Spain's news dads? 12 weeks full pay. Sweden: 11 weeks. Iceland's new fathers get 11 weeks of full paid time off. Canadian new dads get between five and eight weeks. In the U.S., no federal law requires paid paternity leave, although the Family and Medical Leave Act allows unpaid time off.

Unlike 86 percent of Americans who support paid paternity leave, Fox News personality and fascism and white supremacism promoter Tucker Carlson opposes it, apparently, and made that crystal clear in the form of a homophobic attack against U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg Thursday night.

That attack was so broad and so ugly it extends to every man who takes paternity leave, which is unfortunate given that studies show men who take paternity leave are less likely to get divorced, among other long-term benefits.

"Pete Buttigieg has been on leave from his job since August after adopting a child. Paternity leave, they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed – no word on how that went," Carlson said, mocking new dads, fathers in general, men who take paternity leave, and gay fathers.