To a lot of progressive queer people, Buttigieg’s campaign symbolizes everything the marriage-focused mainstream gay rights movement has failed to deliver. In general, Buttigieg makes the case that gay people like him, and like me, deserve to belong — in our families, in our churches, and in our communities — just as much as straight people do. He’s right; we do deserve to belong. But Buttigieg is also effectively arguing that queer people’s rights should derive from the very institutions we’ve only recently gained (tenuous) access to, like marriage and the job market. He’s insisted that universal coverage for things like pre-K, Medicare, and college education — policies I believe in, which would guarantee coverage to every individual, regardless of their marital or employment status — isn’t only financially impossible, but wasteful and unnecessary. (Why rely on the state when you’ve got private corporations or the conservative-approved nuclear family?)