Budget legislation bans raising LGBT flags at US embassies

Hidden in the massive budget bill signed Saturday by President Joe Biden, the provision bans the flying of the LGBT pride flag at US embassies, but the White House said it would look into repealing it.

The ban was one of several items included in a massive $1.2 trillion package to finance the government through September, approved early Saturday.

Republican Mike Johnson, a conservative Christian who presides over the House of Representatives, “boasted” about the ban as a reason his party should support the bill, the Daily Beast reported.

The White House announced Saturday that it will find a way to override a veto that would have allowed the raising of the rainbow flag celebrating the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender identity (LGBT) movement for equality. community.

“Biden believes it was inappropriate to abuse the process necessary to run the government by including measures against LGBTQI+ Americans,” the White House said in a statement.

While it was unable to block the flag proposal, the Biden administration “managed to defeat more than 50 other policy provisions attacking the LGBTQI+ community that Republican congressmen tried to insert into law,” the note adds.

The law signed by Biden establishes that US funds cannot be used to “raise or display a flag at a US State Department facility” except for the US emblem or the emblem of other governments, or to support prisoners of war, soldiers missing in action, hostages. , and unjustly incarcerated Americans.

But even though those flags can’t fly “over” American embassies, that doesn’t mean they’re displayed anywhere else on embassy grounds or inside offices, the Biden camp argued.

The Biden administration has shown strong support for LGBTQ rights. In a sharp change from the previous Donald Trump administration, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has encouraged US missions to fly the rainbow flag during Pride month.

Blinken’s predecessor, Mike Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, ordered that only the American flag be flown at the embassy mast.