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.
Yeah, but you don't want to know where that hand has been.
Yes- that’s right, the most important thing we have going on is that we need to organize the world’s sodomites into a strong lobbying power , so they can change the minds of the old fashioned people, who resist AIDS and disease.
Start the pussy riot!,
Obama is going over the line interfering in the affairs of a sovereign nation.
If I were Putin, I’d ban Obama from entering the country.
“How do they prove that they’re gay? Is there some sort of secret handshake?”
ask Reggie Love and Rahm
Sure go ahead and piss off Putin while you’re threatening war against Syria. They buy many of their weapons from Russia; except when they’re being armed by CIA operatives with chemical weapons that is ...
Guaranteeing the people he meets with will be placed in secret arrest— non-persons. What an idiot!!
Would the US tolerate Putin coming here to meet with, say
... the Tea Party? Imagine.
What kind of malignant narcissist thinks this is OK. Having already lost to Russia his idiotic chaotic Syria “policy”. This person is not capable of containing his opinion of himself. There is a great deal at risk, with his dossier being spilled by Russia and/or Mossad. Because... uh, they KNOW about him (kind of like we do but..more from the seamy side of his history).
Oh, this should go down well.... NOT...
Not only is he on the verge of WW3, he’s going to stick a sharp object in Putin’s eye, while in Russia.
Even Reagan in the darkest days of the Cold War would never have done something so provocative.
he continually promotes the most dangerous Islamoterrorists and he continually promotes his gay friends. All around the world.
One thing those two groups share in is the undermining of Western, Christian civilization
I wonder if Putin is going to come over to the States and meet with disgruntled religious types and conservatives?
With all those hot women in Russia, who’d want to be gay?
Yeah, this is what’s really important right now...
I really do think it’s THE FRENCH that have the goods on Obama.
Both the Syrian and Libyan Wars were/are in the best interest of FINA-Elf.
I would be the first to welcome him.
Excellent. May Mother Russia give him the welcome that he so richly deserves.
“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,”
I believe the Russians can see through this line of crap. It’s not relevant how good a homosexual athlete is. It’s the perverted crap they do to each other, to children, and now the indoctrination of society in general.
And is His going to St Petersburg to rant this nonsense improving relations with the Russians? Or purposely trying to piss them off? Has he considered any consequences?
Ban him? How about arresting him for insurrection?
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