Rush Limbaugh, controversial conservative radio host, died on February 17 at the age of 70.
Limbaugh was well known for creating a particularly hateful brand of talk radio, where he constantly spouted misogynistic, homophobic, anti-immigrant, racist viewpoints. And in an ever changing country that is increasing efforts to leave that rhetoric in the past, we have continually looked back on his content with disgust.
One of Limbaugh's more infamous segments took place in the 80s. It was called the "AIDS Update," and it ghoulishly made fun of the victims of the HIV/AIDS crisis. HIV/AIDS was a disease that disproportionately killed queer people, especially queer people of color.
The day of Limbaugh's death, Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Secretary Of Transportation and former Presidential front-runner Pete Buttigieg, posted a simple photo that made so much of an anti-Limbaugh statement without saying a word.
In February of 2020, Limbaugh sharply criticized Buttigieg's Presidential campaign after he won the Iowa Caucus.
"Okay, how's this going to look, 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage next to Mr. Man Donald Trump? What's going to happen there? They've got to be saying that despite all the great progress and despite all the great wokeness, and despite all the great ground that's been covered, America's still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage President."
In his initial response to it, Chasten simply said he was "not going to take lectures on family values from the likes of Rush Limbaugh."
Chasten also made a subtle dig at Limbaugh when he said he was "faithful to [his] husband," referencing Limbaugh's four marriages and three divorces.
Limbaugh also had Mark Styen host one of the episodes of his show last March.
Styen made an awful and off-color statement about San Francisco's virus lockdown being to stop "all the gays dropping dead on the San Francisco mayor's watch."
Limbaugh's legacy is ugly. Hopefully that legacy can be counter-acted by the legacies of those such as Pete and Chasten Buttigieg, and all of the loving non-hetero/cisgender couples in the world, spreading nothing but love.
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