Posted on 09/02/2013 3:53:20 PM PDT by Libloather
President Obama will meet with several LGBT groups during his trip later this week to St. Petersburg, a move likely to ruffle Russian President Vladimir Putin after the recent passage of a series of anti-gay laws.
The president will meet with human rights activists Lev Ponomarev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, legal aid NGO director Pavel Chikov, and Coming Out, a St. Petersburg-based LGBT organization, according to a report in BuzzFeed.
The decision to meet with the activists in not unprecedented — Obama also met with human rights leaders in 2009 — but comes amid a period of heightened tension with the Kremlin.
During his address on Syria from the Rose Garden on Saturday, Obama blasted the United Nations Security Council as "completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold [Syrian president Bashar] Assad accountable" — a clear swipe at Russia, which has threatened to block any resolution condemning the alleged sarin attack in the Damascus suburbs.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Secretary of State John Kerry's presentation on the attack "absolutely unconvincing" in a press conference on Monday, according to the Associated Press. He said the U.S. intelligence report included "nothing specific there, no geographic coordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals."
And Putin indicated he may send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to lobby the U.S. Congress against any military action in Syria, the Interfax news agency reported.
The skirmish over Syria comes after a summer dominated by a tussle with Putin over Edward Snowden, the former defense contractor responsible for leaking details of top-secret National Security Agency surveillance programs. After more than a month in the Moscow airport, the Kremlin offered Snowden temporary asylum despite protests from the White House.
Russia has also contended with a growing movement to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi over the new anti-gay laws, which threaten fines and imprisonment for those who stage gay pride rallies or events.
Earlier this summer, Obama said he did not "think it's appropriate to boycott the Olympics" — but said he hoped gay American athletes would win medals and change minds.
"One of the things I'm really looking forward to is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which I think would go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes that we're seeing there," he said.
Putin will arrest the whole lot of them the moment AF one hits the tarmac.
If I were Putin , I'd let him in and then lock him up.
That’s because Reagan had class. He may have teased the Russians but deep down he knew that the USSR was deadly serious.
Obama thinks this is all a big game.
Hard to believe a president getting involved in such a discussion.
And Putin is coming over to America to discuss war.
What on earth is in the White House.
Does our president have such cohones that he thinks he could go to another country and stomp on their laws?
Nothing would make me happier to see the Russian police taking him away in handcuffs..
Trying to fire them up for an Arab Spring-type uprising.
Barry Cupcake Goes To Russia And Meets Queers
(Nothing unusual here for the occupant of America’s White Hut.)
I hope they arrest his faggotty ars for disseminating homosexual propaganda and throw him in the p0key.
” Obama will meet each one alone in his hotel room, hoping that Putin is not spying on him.”
I hope Putin videotapes Obama : )
Russia should detain Obama. Obama is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to go to Russia to break Russian law.
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Why would they want him there? He's the best thing that ever happened to them here.
If Russia won’t jail him, how about we impeach and jail him? Otherwise we’re stuck with this POS until the next election.
Please give us Ted Cruz in 2016!
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So I will pray.
I wonder if Obama would go to Muslim countries and argue for rights for the LGBTs.
LOL!
“Is there some sort of secret handshake? “
Yes there is and no you don’t want to know which body part they shake.
I’m sure zombietime will show obozo giving the “secret shake” in a future date.
“Sure go ahead and piss off Putin while you’re threatening war against Syria.”
Yep, way to get some of those pesky scandals off the front page— a bright new shiny war of Barry’s Own!
(with help from the usual suspects)
Exactly, he is insane.
Part of the Founder's value system recognized the cultural & social differences among the several States. Thus the United States as members of a Federation, gave their Federal Government no say whatsoever on moral & social questions. Health, Safety & Morals--what lawyers call the "Police Powers"-- were left to the States, and within the States, in some respects, often to the local subdivisions.
In a similar vein, they explicitly left the question of an established Church to the States. While Jefferson got the State Legislature in the Old Dominion to disestablish the Virginia Church, he never suggested, when he was President, that the Federal Government had the right to force such a change on any other State. Any changes in that direction were voluntary.
The point is this: One of the principal tenets of any rational "Liberty," is the right to form communities of like thinking people; the right to determine what moral & religious principles you will recognize both as individuals, and in communities of the like-minded. The idea of an imposed multi-cultural chaos on local communities, is part of the insanity that flows from that abomination, falsely called "liberalism," today.
William Flax
Putin should come to the United States and meet with people who have been terrorized by the Gaystapo.
Imagine a Putin/Obama arm wrestling match on pay-per-view.
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