Pete Buttigieg gave this 9-year-old boy advice on how to come out as gay

Gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg shared an emotional moment with a young supporter in Denver over the weekend.

The boy, later identified as 9-year-old Zachary Ro, wrote in a question submitted via fishbowl during the young Democrat’s rally. He asked:

Thank you for being so brave.

Would you help me tell the world I'm gay, too? I want to be brave like you.

Zachary then joined the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor on stage. He presented Buttigieg with a bracelet, which the Democratic hopeful put on.

Buttigieg responded:

I don't think you need a lot of advice for me on bravery. You seem pretty strong to me.

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, that's really something.

Then Buttigieg took the opportunity to tell Zachary, "a couple things that might be useful":

The first thing is that it won't always be easy, but that's okay, 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 also told Zachary to be mindful of "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."

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 difference I get to make. I never could have seen that coming, and you'll never know whose life you might be affecting right now, just by standing here. There's a lot of power in that.

The heartwarming clip comes just days after conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s recent homophobic remarks against Buttigieg and his husband Chasten. Buttigieg told CNN's Dana Bash:

Well, I love my husband. I'm faithful to my husband. On stage we usually just go for a hug. But I love him very much, and I'm not going take lectures on family values from the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

At the end of the exchange, Buttigieg told Zachary:

Just promise me you won't run for president until after I'm done because I think you might be strong competition.

No, *you're* crying.

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