quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
This is way beyond WTF. We have gone so far off the rails that this story is even in our universe of thought

The policy sounds reasonable to me.

Our embassies overseas promoting gay rights is a good thing. Here, it's about discrimination. In many other countries, it means standing up for the right of someone not to be imprisoned or killed for their sexual orientation.

Gay people deserve the same rights as everyone else, no more, no less. Places like Iran still exist, so this is important.

Gay people DO deserve the rights as everyone else, no question about that. How many different flags and which ones would qualify do you think our embassies should fly? The rainbow flag is just one of many minority flags. Will they all get equal time? The stars and stripes pretty much stands for them all and I don't think there is much doubt about that in any of the countries you may have in mind.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
This is way beyond WTF. We have gone so far off the rails that this story is even in our universe of thought

The policy sounds reasonable to me.

Our embassies overseas promoting gay rights is a good thing. Here, it's about discrimination. In many other countries, it means standing up for the right of someone not to be imprisoned or killed for their sexual orientation.

Gay people deserve the same rights as everyone else, no more, no less. Places like Iran still exist, so this is important.

Very well said.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
(And the adjective was "senior-most", not "most gay".)

Moist gay what now?

moist gay cake.

Did they fly a thin blue line flag during police week to show solidarity with police officers in other countries who get killed faster for being a good cop than being gay?

No?

Did the embassies fly flags in support of Christianity during Easter to show support for Christians who are being slaughtered world wide for being infidels?

No? Strange. I can’t imagine our government would use its position to push a political position. That’s just weird.

Truth of the matter, if the Embassies had done either of the above, the outrage would have been epic by the very ones who will complain about the rainbow flag not flying.

One flag and one flag only, gents. It represents us all.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Did they fly a thin blue line flag during police week to show solidarity with police officers in other countries who get killed faster for being a good cop than being gay?

No?

Did the embassies fly flags in support of Christianity during Easter to show support for Christians who are being slaughtered world wide for being infidels?

No? Strange. I can’t imagine our government would use its position to push a political position. That’s just weird.

Truth of the matter, if the Embassies had done either of the above, the outrage would have been epic by the very ones who will complain about the rainbow flag not flying.

One flag and one flag only, gents. It represents us all.

Being a cop is a choice, being a Christian is ultimately a choice as well.

Being a homosexual isn't. Killing people for their nature is the hight of barbarism.

Why this even became an issue is beyond me. The whole thing is ridiculous, in the textbook sense of the word. I'm like others in this thread- it's like "Umm, what??"

Sounds like some embassy personnel need to lose their jobs, since they are apparently nothing but leftist hacks. I expect emabassy personnel to serve this nation, and not their own personal political agenda. Fly your fucking idiotic flag on your own time. Just cut the shit or take it on the arches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fuzLTrwVbc

Maybe, we just need to stop pandering to the Gays, Blacks, Irish, Muslims, Jews, et al... and ALL start thinking about that motto on our Seal.

E Pluribus Unum

I think we've become way too divisive, and separated.

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
Being a cop is a choice, being a Christian is ultimately a choice as well.

Being a homosexual isn't. Killing people for their nature is the hight of barbarism.

Sorry, but I don't agree that being homosexual is not a choice. I have yet to see any evidence showing that people are born gay.

flashguy

If you want to derail this thread and turn it into a pointless mess, that's the way to do it. Just stow the nature versus nurture stuff, please. That's a topic we've covered many times in the past.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
One flag and one flag only, gents. It represents us all.

Said way better than I could.

One flag and it represents all of us. If you don't think our flag represents you, then you have more problems than a rainbow flag will fix.

Yet another problem created by Obama that Trump has to fix.

Red, white and blue, it's a freedom rainbow.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
However I hate the idea of US embassy flagpoles—or ANY embassy property—being used for non-national purposes.

+1

And the U.S. flag best represents the concept of "you can be what you what to be", more than any other flag.

Ah the world of symbols. Throw the rainbow flag up and you potentially pacify one group of nitwits, while potentially pissing off another group of nitwits while accomplishing...wait for it...absolutely nothing overall. The US can do its part at promoting equal rights for all, but that isn't accomplished by flying a particular color of cloth on a flag pole. I'm with the current administration on this one. Fly the stars and stripes officially over the embassy, and work covertly and/or openly with other governments to produce tangible results to move them toward the goal of equal rights for all.

Why does there have to be ANY flag, other than the American flag, flown?

It's a US Government building representing the US Government in a foreign country... Just fly the US Flag and be done with it.

Not EVERYTHING has to be a "statement..." Sometimes simple is the answer.

Just fly the Stars and Stripes and nothing else.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
The Obama administration allowed embassies the option to fly the rainbow flag during June.

The rainbow flags can still be flown both inside and outside the U.S. embassies, just not on the official flagpole stand that marks U.S. sovereignty.

The asshattery of the left will never cease to amaze me.

I’m not into symbolism, but there are very specific laws about how and when the United States flag should be displayed. It amazes me that anyone would think it would be OK to do this.

Flying a gay pride flag does nothing to stop murder of gays around the world. Even those in the LGBT community argue over which flag and claim discrimination among the discriminated (https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b193aafe4b0599bc6e124a0/amp). Ultimately the LBGT community doesn’t want equality, they want better treatment than others and their decades long efforts have slowly brainwashed the masses. None of their efforts I’ve seen are for equality- was suing the Christian bakery owner that wouldn’t creat a special cake for a gay couple equality?

Nobody should be discriminated against nor given special treatment but their flag has no business at the embassy. Like someone stated, no other flags are flown. And for the previous claim that LBGT is not a choice and Christianity is, you have not studied scripture. For your info those Reformed Christians teach that God chooses us and the choice is His, not ours so I was chosen before the foundations of the earth were created. I was born into Christianity - I demand my flag is flown since people are being killed around the world for being Christian (in case you do t believe my claim to here or many other places to verify https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/).

Apparently some embassies are ignoring the directive:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.b6d98f065eca

Some U.S. embassies still hoisting rainbow flags, despite advisory from Washington

By Carol Morello June 8 at 6:40 PM

Since the State Department began rejecting all embassy requests to hoist rainbow flags outside the mission buildings during LGBTQ Pride Month this year, some U.S. diplomats have been finding ways to defy, or at least get around, the new policy.

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.

A practice routinely approved for most of the decade at many embassies now requires top-level approval from the State Department. But this year, as first reported by NBC News, all requests were nixed.

The flap over the flags started when the State Department did not send out an official cable this year with guidelines for marking Pride Month, as it has in years past. In 2011, the Obama administration directed agencies involved with foreign policy to promote LGBT rights, a striking policy for an agency that, up to the early 1990s, considered homosexuality a security risk and cause for termination.

The Obama administration’s Pride Month guidelines included rules for flying rainbow flags from poles outside embassies — they had to be smaller than the American flag and fly beneath it. But permission was granted with no fuss. By 2016, approvals were left up to each ambassador or chief of mission.

That process changed last year, after Mike Pompeo became secretary of state. An evangelical Christian who believes marriage should be defined as between a man and woman, Pompeo has said gay employees will be respected and treated like everyone else. But he has downplayed some symbols of LGBT rights, while introducing several new panels and envoys specializing in religious freedom issues.

The advisory cable that came out last year said diplomats are required to obtain top-level approval from the State Department’s Office of Management to fly a rainbow flag.

The State Department declined to answer questions about the Pride Month advisory and rainbow flag ban. But two diplomats familiar with the events said all requests last year were approved.

This year, there was a shift. Embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia, plus a handful of other posts, asked to fly rainbow flags. All were denied, said a person at the State Department who was familiar with what happened.

Although most embassies seem to be toeing the line, the policy shift appears to have sparked something of a revolt among diplomats.

Foreign Service officers have complained on a private Facebook page that nobody should have asked for permission anyway.

Some embassies that have flown the flag in previous years opted this year to commemorate the month by posting on their websites President Trump’s statement affirming LGBT rights and inviting nations to join a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality. The initiative was the idea of Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, who is gay.

Some embassies got playful with the display of Trump’s statement. In Brasilia, for example, the statement is topped by a photo of two hands holding five Play-Doh letters in rainbow colors: LGBTQ. But some did not mention Trump’s statement at all, an absence made more glaring by the juxtaposition with statements by ambassadors and secretaries of states left over from previous years.

Some gay employees in the foreign and civil service say the ban on flying the rainbow flag is just the tip of an iceberg of slights.

Pompeo has not issued a statement for Pride Month, as he did last year. He did not attend the State Department’s annual Pride Day event for two years running as his predecessors usually did, though he was traveling in Europe this year. Instead, he dispatched Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan, a veteran diplomat who promised that the State Department will advocate for gay diplomats and their families.

“Day by day, a death by a thousand cuts, our rights as lgbt+ Americans are being eroded with the removal of a guidance here, the rewriting of a policy there, or just the quiet disappearance of a web site,” Robyn McCutcheon, a transgender woman who has served in several posts abroad, wrote in her blog “Transgender at State,” lamenting what she has observed throughout the government in the past two years. “It should come as no surprise that this erosion would happen also at the U.S. Department of State.”

Some acknowledge that their worst fears have not been borne out.

The administration has appointed several gay ambassadors. Trump became the first Republican president to make a statement celebrating Pride Month. No one has been fired for sexual orientation, but some said they have felt more vulnerable after Trump tried to ban transgender people from the military.

Better, they said, to not even discuss LGBT issues publicly and risk the consequences of drawing attention to themselves.

“We fly below the radar,” one employee said. “We survive because they don’t realize we’re here.”

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

Better, they said, to not even discuss LGBT issues publicly and risk the consequences of drawing attention to themselves.

“We fly below the radar,” one employee said. “We survive because they don’t realize we’re here.”

Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

When did we get to a point when a national fag recognition month was even a thing?

Circling the drain.

Insubordination is not tolerated in the military, it is not tolerated in the civilian sector, why the hell is it tolerated in the executive branch?

The reason is simple. They know there will never be any consequences.