Host of nations, but not US, back Pride Day declaration
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The foreign ministries of Canada, Australia, Brazil and a host of European nations have issued statements celebrating LGBTQI rights to coincide with international Pride Day.
The United States, which has moved rapidly to dismantle civil rights protections since the election of President Donald Trump, was not among its signatories.
The statement, whose backers also include Spain, Belgium, Colombia, Ireland and other nations, said the countries “are speaking and acting as one to champion the rights of LGBTQI people”.
“At a time when hate speech and hate crimes are on the rise, and in view of efforts to strip LGBTQI people of their rights, we reject all forms of violence, criminalisation, stigmatisation or discrimination, which constitute human rights violations,” said the statement, released for international Pride Day on June 28.
It was not immediately clear why the United States was absent. Canadian, Australian, Brazilian, Irish and US officials did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the Pride Day statement and Washington’s absence from it.
The US, once a champion of gay rights abroad, has reversed course under Trump, whose administration has rapidly dismantled longstanding civil rights protections for LGBTQI people and expelled transgender service members from the military.
Defenders of gay rights are concerned the backsliding will embolden anti-gay movements elsewhere, especially in Africa, where it could worsen an already difficult situation for LGBTQI people.
Trump’s right-wing allies have tapped into anti-LGBTQI sentiment to shore up their political support.
In Hungary on Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters flouted a law passed in March by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government that allows for the ban of Pride marches.
The demonstrators swarmed Budapest with rainbow-coloured flags in one of the biggest shows of opposition to the Hungarian leader.
“This is about much more, not just about homosexuality … This is the last moment to stand up for our rights,” Eszter Rein Bodi, one of the marchers, said.
“None of us are free until everyone is free,” one sign read.
Marchers included students, families and people from the countryside who said they had never attended a rally before. Budapest’s Erzsebet bridge, built to carry six lanes of traffic, was engulfed with people.
Reuters
