Trump Turns Down Requests From US Embassies To Fly Rainbow Flags To Honor LGBTQ Pride Month
Credit: Screengrab
June 9, 2019

Much like how Trump despises climate change and global warming, he is also not a fan of the LGBTQ community. Whether it is genuine bigotry, or merely virtue signalling his base (as Javanka insists) isn't really relevant to how cruel it is to LGBTQ+ Americans.

We know he's appointed several members of the gay community to his administration, including the controversial choice of Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany, but that does not translate into a supporter of gay rights.

NBC News reports:

The Trump administration is rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow pride flag on embassy flagpoles during June, LGBTQ Pride Month, three American diplomats told NBC News.
The U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia are among those that have requested permission from Trump's State Department to fly the pride flag on their flagpoles and have been denied, diplomats said.

President Obama granted blanket permissions to fly pride flags so that must be a motivating factor for Donald Trump.

Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are evangelical Christian kooks, who believe marriage should be defined as between a man and woman so you know their beliefs are at the center of this insipid regulation. "He (Pompeo) did not attend the State Department’s annual Pride Day event for two years running as his predecessors usually did," said Carol Morello.

The good news is many US embassies are finding ways around the White House demands.

The Washington Post has the details.

The facades of the U.S. missions in Seoul and Chennai, India, are partially hidden behind large rainbow flags, while the embassy in New Delhi is aglow in rainbow colored lights. The website for the embassy in Santiago, Chile, shows a video of the chief diplomat raising a rainbow flag last month for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

The Vienna embassy’s website features a photo of a rainbow flag flying below Old Glory on a mast jutting from the building, a statement by Diplomats for Equality and a story about a professor lecturing on the visibility and growth of LGBT rights.

U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem joined a March for Pride and Tolerance, and several ambassadors have tweeted photos of themselves in local Pride parades or standing outside the embassies surrounded by employees holding up letters spelling PRIDE.

“This is a category one insurrection,” said one diplomat, who like others interviewed about the sentiment over the rejections, which were not made in writing, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.

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