San Francisco Pride
Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 29th, 2014
Good morning!
Although the 44th year of San Francisco Pride officially began yesterday, the festivities started quite some time before. The LGBT community in San Francisco knows how to partē! And the celebration is not just here in our beloved San Francisco. In fact the Gay Pride Rainbow Flag is flying all across the world. Thanks to our awesome president Obama, he has taken the U.S. gay rights revolution global.
Here’s the write from Ctv News.
Obama flying the flag for gay rights worldwide
A U.S. flag is raised alongside a pride flag on the U.S. Embassy a day before the Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, June 12, 2014
WARSAW, Poland — U.S. President Barack Obama has taken the U.S. gay rights revolution global, using American embassies across the world to promote a cause that still divides his own country.
Sometimes U.S. advice and encouragement is condemned as unacceptable meddling. And sometimes it can seem to backfire, increasing the pressure on those it is meant to help.
With gay pride parades taking place in many cities across the world this weekend, the U.S. role will be more visible than ever. Diplomats will take part in parades and some embassies will fly the rainbow flag along with the Stars and Stripes.
The United States sent five openly gay ambassadors abroad last year, with a sixth nominee, to Vietnam, now awaiting Senate confirmation. American diplomats are working to support gay rights in countries such as Poland, where prejudice remains deep, and to oppose violence and other abuse in countries like Nigeria and Russia, where gays face life-threatening risks.
“It is incredible. I am amazed by what the U.S. is doing to help us,” said Mariusz Kurc, the editor of a Polish gay advocacy magazine, Replika, which has received some U.S. funding and other help. “We are used to struggling and not finding any support.”
Former President George W. Bush supported AIDS prevention efforts globally, but it was the Obama administration that launched the push to make lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights an international issue. The watershed moment came in December 2011, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to the United Nations in Geneva and proclaimed LGBT rights “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time.”
Since then, embassies have been opening their doors to gay rights activists, hosting events and supporting local advocacy work. The State Department has since spent $12 million on the efforts in over 50 countries through the Global Equality Fund, an initiative launched to fund the new work.
Just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defence of Marriage Act last June, consular posts also began issuing immigrant visas to the same-sex spouses of gay Americans.
One beneficiary was Jake Lees, a 27-year-old Englishman who had been forced to spend long periods apart from his American partner, Austin Armacost, since they met six years ago. In May Lees was issued a fiance visa at the U.S. Embassy in London. The couple married two weeks ago and are now starting a new life together in Franklin, Indiana, as they wait for Lees’ green card.
“I felt like the officers at the embassy treated us the way they would treat a heterosexual couple,” said Armacost, a 26-year-old fitness and nutrition instructor. “It’s a mind-boggling change after gay couples were treated like legal strangers for the first three centuries of our country’s history.”
Some conservative American groups are outraged by the policy. Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, calls it “a slap in the face to the majority of Americans,” given that American voters have rejected same-sex marriage in a number of state referendums.
“This is taking a flawed view of what it means to be a human being — male and female — and trying to impose that on countries throughout the world,” Brown said. “The administration would like people to believe that this is simply ‘live and let live.’ No, this is coercion in its worst possible form.”
The American efforts are tailored to local conditions, said Scott Busby, the deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the State Department. Ambassadors can decide individually whether to hoist the rainbow flag, as embassies in Tel Aviv, London and Prague have done, or show support in other ways.
While some gay rights activists say support from the U.S. and other Western countries adds moral legitimacy to their cause, it can also cause a backlash.
Rauda Morcos, a prominent Palestinian lesbian activist, said local communities, particularly in the Middle East, have to find their own ways of asserting themselves. She criticized the U.S. and Western efforts in general to help gay communities elsewhere as patronizing.
“It is a colonial approach,” she said. “In cases where it was tried, it didn’t help local communities and maybe made things even worse.”
An extreme case has been Uganda, which in February passed a law making gay sex punishable by a life sentence. In enacting the bill, President Yoweri Museveni said he wanted to deter the West from “promoting” gay rights in Africa, a continent where homosexuals face severe discrimination and even attacks. In response, the U.S. imposed sanctions and Secretary of State John Kerry compared the policies to the anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has waged an assault on what he considers the encroachment of decadent Western values and the government last year banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors,” making it a crime to hold gay rights rallies or to openly discuss homosexuality in content accessible to children. Afraid for their security, some Russian gay advocates try to keep their contacts with Western officials quiet.
The official U.S. delegation to the recent Winter Olympics in Russia included three openly gay athletes. Soon after that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow opened its basketball court for the Open Games, an LGBT sporting event which had been denied access to many of the venues it had counted on. The U.S. Embassy also operates a website where Russian gay and lesbians can publish their personal stories.
Jessica Stern, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, praised the U.S. policy but said there have been missteps along the way, citing a 2011 U.S. embassy gathering in Pakistan that prompted a group of religious and political leaders to accuse the U.S. of “cultural terrorism.”
And in Senegal a year ago, President Macky Sall bluntly rebuked the visiting Obama for urging African leaders to end discrimination against gays. Sall said his country was neither homophobic nor ready to legalize homosexuality, and in an apparent jab at the U.S., he noted Senegal abolished capital punishment years ago.
“The response in the local press was voluminous praise of the Senegalese president, maybe not actually for his stance on LGBT rights, but for effectively asserting Senegal’s sovereignty, yet the two became intertwined,” Stern said.
Busby, the State Department official, denied that increased harassment by governments is ever the consequence of U.S. advocacy, instead describing it as “a cynical reaction taken by leaders to advance their own political standing.”
In some countries, like Poland, the U.S. efforts are a catalyst for change.
The embassy there financed a 2012 visit to Warsaw by Dennis and Judy Shepard, the parents of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student who was tortured and murdered in 1998.
A group of parents who heard their story were so shaken by the Shepards’ tragedy that they founded a parental advocacy group, Akceptacja, which is fighting homophobia. The parents are now reaching out to their lawmakers personally, in what advocates say is the conscious adoption of an American strategy of families of gays and lesbians appealing to the hearts of officials.
“The killing of Matthew Shepard represents the fear I have that my son could be hurt for being gay,” said Tamara Uliasz, 60, one of the group’s founders. “I realized that what happened in Wyoming could happen here.”
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Readers: I applaud Obama…And as usual there are some who are against this. Thoughts? Blog me.
So hey, back to the celebration…If you’re feeling a little envious that perhaps you’ve missed out on so much fun, no worries it’s not too late to indulge in the celebration – today is the Pride Parade, and if you haven’t been, it is something to see.
Check out their website for details. If you attend, head out early – 1 million people are expected to join in on the celebration. Now that is a party! It should be a beautiful day around the bay - Have fun!!
xox
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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June 29th, 2014 at 11:43 pm
I love San Francisco,. We are so not into getting into other people’s business.
June 30th, 2014 at 5:50 am
Howie what is happening with Vivv? Did he win or lose?
June 30th, 2014 at 6:04 am
Millions of people in this planet beleived that America and the world are under God’s judment, but those who not beleived in God cannot understand what is happening, millions of people doing voting fraud just to get free welfare, is very sad, I have friends in Miami that hates the Republican party because been brain washed by the Democratic party, they been waiting for over 10 years to fix their migratory status, Democratic party is giving there welfare ( they don’t need it at all) and the promise of free education (Dream Act) for their kids (born in South America) they don’t think why Obama wait 4 years to started talking about immigration! Obama are just using those people to vote for him, even they are illegals! VOTER FRAUD all over America!! If Americans of good will no start an aggresive campaing and expose the evil of Obama, America and the world will be lost for ever! REMEMBER THAT OBAMA BECAME THE LIDER OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER ON SEPT. 17 2011!!
June 30th, 2014 at 6:41 am
I read that Obama is supporting gay rights worldwide. Sick, sick, sick! I am sure there are more pressing and demanding issues for Obama to give his support to.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:43 am
This is what happens when you elect an activist as president. The US has lost respect around the world during his term as president.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:44 am
History has proven over the years that before there is a decline in a nation there is first a moral decline, and it is proving itself one more time through Obama.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:45 am
@Eric, do you realize that your anger is showing? I was too young when they had open racism on the streets. A time when Chinese weren’t allowed to own houses, black had to use a separate fountain from whites, etc.
As the people of that generation die off our country is becoming better. There is still some mop up work to do and push out the few stragglers left behind from the dark ages but old age will take care of them and will take care of their offspring soon enough.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:46 am
Eric#4 it is good to see a leader take on the tough issues. Not cower away from the tough fights. I can see the hate of people that want to police their fellow humans on this issue. Interesting how many out there that desire control on other people.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:48 am
Eric#4, Kudos to Obama for doing what’s right. It will be a long, painful road to full global equality with plenty of future bloodshed, but we will win in the end. The massive surge in progress in the last few years is an indication of that.
I must also chuckle at those who feel they have something useful to contribute to the discussion about morality by taking their policies from Iron Age scriptures that are filled with genocide, rape, and hearsay.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:49 am
@Jamie#8: The REAL tough issues are in Syria, Iraq, The Ukraine and China Seas, all Obama has done on those issues IS cower away. Raising a flag is a nice gesture, but an easy and empty one at that.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:50 am
Happily the president doesn’t need to deal with the do-nothings in congress to spread the message of America’s love of freedom! You go Mr. O!
June 30th, 2014 at 6:52 am
No matter how you feel about gay people, this is going to twist the knickers of the anti-gay fanatics in the US. Bring popcorn and enjoy the show, it’ll be even better than watching a politician stick his foot in his mouth yet again.
June 30th, 2014 at 6:53 am
Obama’s US Ambassador Raises The LGBT Flag Over US Embassy In Israel
http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unrest/2014/06/obamas-us-ambassador-raises-the-lgbt-flag-over-us-embassy-in-israel-2459472.html
June 30th, 2014 at 6:55 am
WARSAW, Poland — President Barack Obama has taken the U.S. gay rights revolution global, using American embassies to promote a cause that still divides his own country.
#
June 30th, 2014 at 7:02 am
Obama had no problem taking down the Christian flag with a Cross on it in Afghanistan. Yet, he allows this sick gay flag to be flown there.
June 30th, 2014 at 7:12 am
I’m a military wife of 20 years. My husband is currently serving in Afghanistan with the 3rd Infantry Division in Kandahar.
His reaction was like mine. This is either a photoshop or a prank. More likely a prank.
If you follow the set of links from where this originated you’ll see that it was (supposedly) posted on a FB page by a military wife. That page is now down, as is the picture. The explanation for that would probably be, assuming that was a gay flag, that it is against a violation of some regulation or other and she didn’t want her husband getting into trouble after it went viral.
In my personal experience, I haven’t met any infantry men who are sympathetic to the gay cause. They may tolerate it or accept it so as to justify their own immoral heterosexual behavior, but I’ve never met one who is so excited about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell that they would risk being reprimanded or punished by his chain of command over something like this.
My point is that this isn’t Obama’s Army… yet. This flag, if it is real, cannot be flown on a military base like that. A prank or a photoshop. Or a really stupid husband and wife team, and there are some of those in the Army, I’m sad to say.
My husband has this to say about the taking down of the cross in Afghanistan:
“The deal with the cross is not that it offends atheists or libs, but it probably looks like we are Crusaders to some Muslims.”
He is absolutely right. I know the administration doesn’t give a rats ass about winning the war or counterinsurgency (which is why people believe that the cross was taken down to appease libs and atheists and the gay flag flying with permission), but the fact is that there is a religious history in the Middle East that involves conquering and wars between Christians and Muslims. It may look like a slap in the face to the US, but the Army is not a church and cannot risk alienating what few allies in Afghanistan we have left.
There are some good Muslims in the Afghan Army that my husband works with… although when I say “good Muslims” I don’t know if Muslims willing to work with the U.S. or other faiths are “good” in the eyes of other Muslims, much like Catholics who vote for Obama cannot be real Catholics…. anyway, some are “good Muslims” and reject terrorism and the Taliban. The people of Afghanistan are just scared. We are not trying to appease the terrorists, we are trying to send the right signal that we are not interested in imperialism like the British Empire was, but rather that we are interested in helping them facilitate their own future success. We are benevolent. Except for liberal soldiers who screw everything up, but that’s another story….
June 30th, 2014 at 7:14 am
God’s judgment will come for this. You watch. Watch bad things happen to the American military and proud America. Watch what God does.
June 30th, 2014 at 7:15 am
Frankly Chris#17, I don’t think Carr gives a damn.