Iraq: U.S. Embassy Holds First-Ever Gay Pride Party

Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted on the site Right Wing News. The opinions and perspectives voiced within this piece are not in any way associated with or supported by The Lion’s Historian writers and contributors.

In the short time that President Obama has been in office, there have been many breaches of foreign protocol such as an overt familiarity with the British Queen and bowing to the Saudi King. But the most significant indiscretion will occur tonight as homosexuality is promoted in our embassy in a foreign land–in Baghdad, Iraq, no less.

In the May 22, 2009 edition of The Washington Post, columnist Al Kamen wrote a piece entitled, “For One Night, Baghdad Gets a Pink Zone.” He revealed that the State Department is “holding what the invitation says is the first-ever U.S. Embassy Gay Pride Theme Party next Friday at Bagdaddy’s, which is the embassy employee association’s pub.” The invitation, which was sent out on May 10, encouraged everyone to, “Dress in drag or as a gay icon.”

The ideas of tolerance, diversity, and understanding are frequently toted by President Obama and his allies on the left. They have claimed that these attributes were lacking during the Bush years, specifically regarding Middle Eastern policy. However, by allowing a gay pride party to be sanctioned by the government the current administration is not showing any tolerance or understanding of the Middle Eastern culture and religion.

These gay rights spectacles are offensive to many in America, which is a far more permissive country in tolerating such conspicuous displays of sexually based behavior. Although gay pride parties and parades are considered abrasive by many in U.S. culture, this is downright belligerent within a Muslin culture which considers unveiled women provocative.

The Islamic culture does not appreciate or allow public sexual displays to begin with. Now the American embassy is going to display sexuality in a way that will do nothing but offend the host population, needlessly complicating an already sensitive situation. The question becomes, who is going to suffer? Our embassy officials, or our soldiers on the ground who will endure the increased outrage when events such as this occur?

Frequently cited among Muslims is not a dislike of Americans, but a dislike of the American culture’s brazen sexual behavior such as that demonstrated during a gay pride event. Prominent sexual conduct is considered by the Middle Easterners as one example of the debauchery within Western culture that they do not want imported within their homes and country, and they are willing to fight us to allow their culture to remain unaffected. A gay pride display sponsored in an official location such as an embassy can only serve to provoke and inflame Muslim distrust and distain for Western and American culture.

Gay pride events began in 1970, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall “rebellion,” when protests and riots ensued for several nights following a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in New York City. These parties and parades have since occurred during the end of June, spreading to cities around the world. In June 2000, Bill Clinton declared June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, with the last Sunday reserved as Gay Pride Day. As this year is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riot, there has been an increased spotlight on gay pride, even among our State Department officials in Middle Eastern countries.

Gay activists have become as aggressive and assertive as the police were overzealous in the establishment on Christopher Street that prompted this whole affair. The homosexual agenda has transformed from desiring equal treatment under the law to demanding state sanctioning of their chosen way to life. This has gone far beyond any private or unconventional sexual behavior between consenting adults, to a diminishing of dignity and discretion regarding private matters.

The liberals scream abridgement of the separation of church and state at the thought of a prayer being said at a public school graduation, a university that has accepted government assistance, a military service, or any other gathering involving government officials or funds. But now we have the religion of liberalism taking over the state as its church to espouse their theological values.

More offensive than our men in arms in an Islamic country are men in drag, as this strikes at the very core of propriety and decency within their culture. To the average Muslim, the threat of a Christian solder in their country to provide order is not nearly as threatening as the Westerners’ presence being the harbingers of gay pride and other events reflecting moral decadence. The Islamic world is already leery of moral decay in America, and tonight’s party at our Iraqi embassy celebrating conspicuous sexual behavior will only give the Muslims more motivation for wanting American and Western influence permanently out of their lands.