Congresswoman Gabbard (D-Hawaii) announced her candidacy on Friday and has immediately faced opposition, not just from Republicans but from within her own party and its voters. Her opposition to military action in Syria prompted establishment figures on the right and left to label her an “Assad sympathizer” and a darling of 4chan, the alt-right (and even of RT).

Then, comments Gabbard made on gay marriage in 2004 were unearthed. 14 years ago, in her position as a Hawaii State Representative, Gabbard testified against a bill legalizing same-sex civil unions.

“To try to act as if there is a difference between ‘civil unions’ and same-sex marriage is dishonest, cowardly and extremely disrespectful to the people of Hawaii,” she said at the time. “As Democrats, we should be representing the views of the people, not a small number of homosexual extremists.”

The term “homosexual extremists” was used again by Gabbard in a magazine interview later that year. Responding to questions about her father’s ties to the Hindu Hare Krishna movement, Gabbard accused critics of her father – a Republican city councilman in Honolulu running for Congress– of “acting as a conduit for The Honolulu Weekly and other homosexual extremist supporters of Ed Case,” her father’s opponent at the time.

Examined in 2019, the remarks didn’t sit well with the newer, more progressive Democratic party. As a female, the first Hindu member of Congress, a combat veteran and an early supporter of Bernie Sanders, Gabbard seems to tick all of the identity politics boxes a modern Democrat should. However, many progressives turned their noses up after hearing her 2004 take on same-sex unions.