This marks the first time in office that Trump has recognized June as LGBTQ Pride Month after failing to issue Pride Month proclamations in 20.
“My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort!” “As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation,” Trump wrote.
The Pride symbols can reportedly be hung elsewhere on embassy grounds, but banning them from official poles seems to fly in the face of Trump’s recent tweet supporting LGBTQ rights, particularly overseas. While the Obama administration had granted blanket permission to embassies overseas to fly the Pride flag during June, State Department policy under Trump now states that embassies must get explicit approval before flying flags on their official flagpoles. These denials came directly from the office of Brian Bulatao, the State Department’s undersecretary for management and a longtime associate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. embassies to fly LGBTQ Pride flags in commemoration of Pride Month, according to several diplomats.ĭiplomats from embassies in Israel, Brazil, Germany, and Latvia are among those who applied for permission to fly the rainbow flags on their official flagpoles but were rejected, NBC News reports. A former commentator on Fox News, Grenell said he enjoyed the support of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, another evangelical, for a US-led campaign to end persecution of gay people - an initiative that notably criticizes US arch-rival Iran.The Trump administration has denied requests from U.S. One of the most prominent gay members of President Donald Trump's administration is Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany. The US embassy in New Delhi was lit up in the rainbow colors as a sign of solidarity in a country where the Supreme Court last year overturned a colonial-era ban on gay sex. Chad Griffin, head of the Human Rights Campaign, the lead US gay rights group, said that the flag order "sends a chilling message not only to LGBTQ people in this country, but around the globe." A number of US embassies have already highlighted their celebrations of Pride Month. I am demanding the Trump admin explain this hate," he tweeted.
"As we celebrate Pride Month, this decision must be reversed. "At a time when LGBTQ+ communities around the world face persecution, this Trump decision is a blatant attack on LGBTI rights," said Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts. News of Pompeo's orders, first reported last week by NBC News, provoked outrage among advocates of gay rights. The previous administration of president Barack Obama, an advocate of gay rights equality, let US embassies fly the pride flag without no questions asked and even lit up the White House in the rainbow colors when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. "Pride month, that we're in right now, was celebrated around the world by many State Department employees," she said.
Did obama have the gay pride flag flown at us embassies free#
But she said that US diplomats overseas were free to display rainbows flags elsewhere at embassies in June - Pride Month, with this year marking the 50th anniversary of New York's Stonewall uprising that sparked the modern gay rights movement. "The secretary has the position that, as it relates to the flagpole, that only the American flag should be flown there," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters. Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, has said that he defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman but has also said he respects employees regardless of sexual orientation. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has barred US embassies from flying the rainbow flag of the gay pride movement on flagpoles, the State Department confirmed Monday after criticism.