Denmark LGBT groups snub US Ambassador’s Pride reception to protest Trump policies
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Denmark’s LGBT groups have delivered a public snub to the US Ambassador appointed by Donald Trump.
Private equity firm chair Carla Sands was appointed by Trump last year to serve as the United States Ambassador to Denmark, replacing Rufus Gifford.
However locals are giving the Trump appointee a frosty welcome.
Carla Sands
Denmark’s LGBT media outlet Out & About reports that Copenhagen Pride organisers and activists from the country’s biggest LGBT organisation ‘LGBT Denmark’ are both planning to boycott a Pride reception hosted by the new US Ambassador later this month.
The groups are taking a stand against the Trump administration’s policies.
Thomas Rasmussen of Copenhagen Pride said: “It would sound pretty hollow if on the one side you criticise the Trump administration for their reluctance to accommodate LGBT people and the rolling back of LGBT-inclusive legislation, and at the same time stand around drinking champagne with the ambassador who represents that administration.
A spokesperson for LGBT Denmark said: “We don’t want to rubber-stamp the Trump Administration’s backward-looking rolling back of LBGT rights by our presence.”
Other LGBT activists have said they will attend.
A lesbian couple walks past the Copenhagen Cathedral on July 29. 2009 with its pilars covered with the colors of the 2009 World Outgames. (Casper Christoffersen/AFP/Gett)
The annual Pride reception is a legacy of Sands’ predecessor.
Former ambassador Rufus Gifford was an appointee of President Obama, and one of a string of gay ambassadors named by the former President who had sought to remedy the lack of LGBT diversity in diplomacy.
He became a popular figure in Denmark through his TV show I Am The Ambassador, which followed Gifford across his day-to-day work.
The TV show also featured Gifford’s husband Stephen, who he married in Denmark in 2015.
Trump has so far only appointed one gay ambassador, former Republican operative Richard Grenell, who is now the US Ambassador to Germany .
Grenell recently came under fire recently said he would work to “empower” ultra-conservative movements across Europe.
He said: “I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders. I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left.
“There’s no question about that and it’s an exciting time for me. I look across the landscape and we’ve got a lot of work to do but I think the election of Donald Trump has empowered individuals and people to say that they can’t just allow the political class to determine before an election takes place, who’s going to win and who should run.”
