Just over a decade ago, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton
observed that “some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct, but in fact they are one and the same.” While a bit of a strawman argument, Clinton’s intention was less to debate than to redirect the
State Department
from traditional diplomacy in pursuit of American interests to activism on social issues.
The White House soon clarified that Clinton’s redirection would not extend to foreign aid. Discrimination against
gay and lesbian
people would have no bearing on partnerships or assistance. For Clinton, it was little more than virtue signaling. On a practical level, it meant little for U.S. embassies.
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In February 2014,
Russia
hosted the Olympics at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Against the backdrop of Russia’s draconian anti-gay laws, athletes and activists rallied to display the rainbow flag. Google soon modified its own logo with a rainbow to support the protests. Three months later, the U.S. Embassy in Estonia announced that it would fly the rainbow flag. Jeffrey Levine, a San Francisco Bay Area native and political appointee, explained his goal was “to celebrate diversity and acceptance.” The U.S. Embassy in Madrid soon followed,
displaying
a rainbow flag lower but still larger than its American flag. The next month, the U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv, Prague, and London followed suit. “Proudly flying the colors,” Ambassador Dan Shapiro wrote on the Tel Aviv embassy’s Facebook page.
The movement soon snowballed. The following year, the U.S. Embassy in Manila hung the rainbow flag and sponsored a chalk art festival to promote gay pride. In Riga, the U.S. flew the rainbow flag and sponsored a Pride concert. Mark Brzezinski, then the departing U.S. ambassador to Sweden, listed flying the rainbow flag from the embassy flagpole as among his top accomplishments. Every year, more embassies joined the list. At least until Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
took over. In 2019, the new secretary of state weathered criticism when he forbade embassies from flying any flag other than the stars and stripes from the embassy flagpole. The press piled on their criticism, never mind that just five years before, such displays were almost unheard of. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul sought to bypass the restriction by draping a huge rainbow flag from the side of the embassy.
Pompeo was right.
While LGBT evangelicals demand the State Department fly their flag, such virtue signaling often does more harm than good. Flying the rainbow flag at the
Vatican
to troll the Catholic faith is bad enough, but to do so in Muslim-majority countries such as
Kosovo
and the United Arab Emirates simply stirs the hornet’s nest for little result. Turning embassy Twitter accounts over to LGBT activism in countries such as
Kuwait
is little better. The backlash was as bad in socially conservative Caribbean countries such as
Trinidad
. In Jamaica, a protest against the U.S. Embassy’s rainbow flag garnered over 750,000
YouTube views
.
The problem is not principle but virtue signaling. Ronald Reagan sent a black ambassador to South Africa and a Jewish ambassador to Pakistan. In 2013 alone, Obama sent five openly gay ambassadors abroad. Every day, their service did more to demonstrate the importance of tolerance than a gay pride flag one week a year.
Distraction from core interests is also a problem. Washington can and should name and shame rights violators in its annual reports, but should Pride events be a greater priority than counterterrorism or counterproliferation? Consider: Just two months before Kabul fell to the Taliban and as thousands of visas went unprocessed, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was tweeting gay pride.
President Joe Biden says “diplomacy is back,” but effective diplomacy must not be about political posturing. The State Department’s gay pride activism is setting back both LGBT rights and kneecapping our diplomats’ effectiveness.
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Michael Rubin (
@mrubin1971
) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
