In footage shared from the consulate’s official Twitter page earlier this month, the rainbow flag could be seen draped over its building to mark Pride Month, Huffington Post also reported.
“For the 6th year, we are proudly raising this beautiful Pride Flag at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto to mark June as #PrideMonth! @usconstoronto will also march in the @PrideToronto parade to honor #Stonewall50 — one of the landmark moments in the fight for #LGBTQ rights,” the consulate tweeted, according to The Hill.
John Manzo is a sociology professor at the University of Calgary. As an immigrant from the U.S., he says he’s happy to see the Pride flag on the building.
Well the realDonaldTrump POTUS policy cause they are hanging one of the largest cmfWZXTgsf
— garethseltzer (@garethseltzer) June 19, 2019
“I’m incredibly proud of the U.S. consulate in Toronto for doing this,” he told HuffPost Canada. “We as queer Americans and as queer Canadians need to see that sort of support, especially when we feel like we’ve been abandoned by Trump.”
The decision not to allow the Pride flag to be flown on the official flagpole stands in contrast to President Donald Trump’s claim to be a leader in supporting LGBTQ rights overseas.
The move was in sharp contrast to President Barack Obama’s blanket permission to embassies overseas to fly the pride flag during June. This year, U.S. diplomats said, embassies were told they can display the pride flag in other places, including inside embassies, but that requests to fly it on the flagpole must be specifically approved, according to NBC News. To date, no approvals have been granted.
U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia are among those who specifically requested permission from the State Department to fly the Pride flags. The denials came from the office of the State Department’s undersecretary for management, Brian Bulatao.
thank you usconstoronto PrideMonth Stonewall50 worldpride2019 on WetheNorthDay during the WetheNorth bdBiS9ynGH
— Andy Heppelle (@andytoronto) June 18, 2019
For the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, the denial was a big slap in the face because the ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, is spearheading an administration push to end the criminalization of homosexuality in roughly 70 countries that still outlaw it. Grenell, who is openly gay, got the support of the Trump administration in February for the campaign.
In Germany, Pride celebrations continue into the month of July for a European LGBTQ event known as Christopher Street Day (CSD), occurring on different dates around Europe. Christopher Street Day is an annual European LGBT celebration and demonstration held in various cities across Europe for the rights of LGBT people, and against discrimination and exclusion.
CSD is held in memory of the Stonewall Riots, the first big uprising of LGBT people against police assaults that took place at the Stonewall Inn, a bar on New York City’s Christopher Street in the district of Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969.
