WARSAW, poland — 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, awaiting Senate confirmation. American diplomats work 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, editor of a Polish gay advocacy magazine, Replika, which has received U.S. funding. “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.
One beneficiary was Jake Lees, 27, an 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 fiancé visa at the U.S. Embassy in London. The couple married two weeks ago and are starting a new life together in Franklin, Ind., 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, 26, a fitness and nutrition instructor.
Some conservative American groups are outraged by the policy.
“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,” said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage.
