The U.S. ambassador to Poland recently participated in an LGBT “pride” parade in the conservative-leaning nation’s capital. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski and around 30 other U.S. embassy staffers marched under an American flag in the Warsaw “Equality Parade” on Saturday. Brzezinski later tweeted, “We are proud to be allies of the LGBTQI+ community and to support the equality movement.”
The move was, according to Brzezinski, in response to an alleged “organized campaign targeting Poland’s LGBTQI+ community with hate, lies, and slander …”
That “organized campaign” is the will of the Polish people as carried out by the democratically-elected ruling Law and Justice Party. For example, a 2014 poll found that 70% of Polish people described same-sex sexual activity as “morally unacceptable,” and in a 2019 survey a majority of Polish men responded that “the LGBT movement and gender ideology” is the greatest threat of the 21st century. Currently, same-sex marriage is not legal in Poland, nor are same-sex civil unions, and same-sex partners are not permitted to adopt children. In its 2023 annual report, pro-LGBT think tank ILGA Europe smeared Poland as the worst country in the European Union for “LGBTI rights.”
Brzezinski’s participation in the parade is simply the latest in an ongoing campaign orchestrated by Biden’s State Department to promote LGBT ideology abroad, especially in countries where traditional or biblical views are predominant or upheld by law. A recent Family Research Council report examined this weaponization of the State Department and found that, out of its 163 embassies across the globe, 132 U.S. embassies released Pride Month statements last year, 99 flew variations of the Pride flag, and 49 had staffers who participated in Pride parades. Millions of taxpayer dollars are spent on promoting the LGBT agenda in other countries.
Promotion of Pride Month by U.S. embassies in culturally conservative countries has weakened or strained diplomatic relations. The United Arab Emirates, Jamaica, Kuwait, and others have all issued public complaints or rebukes against this “cultural imperialism,” as Jamaican protestors termed it.
“The Biden administration treats its embassies not as diplomatic outposts representing the United States, but as activist organizations meant to fundamentally transform foreign cultures to adopt progressive values,” Arielle Del Turco, director of FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty and one of the report’s authors, told The Washington Stand. “The LGBT ideology simply does not represent all Americans, and embassy staff should never use their power and influence to pressure other countries to adopt LGBT policies.”
This year has been no different. Notably, the U.S. embassy to the Holy See brazenly displayed a Pride flag on June 1, despite the Catholic Church’s longstanding doctrinal opposition to homosexual activity and stalwart promotion of natural marriage. The embassy had done the same last year, too. The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines (where same-sex marriage is not legally recognized and gender transition drugs and surgeries are illegal) raised the Pride flag outside the embassy and proudly tweeted her support for transgenderism. And the U.S. ambassador to Qatar (where homosexual activity is outright illegal) posted a Pride Month message to Twitter, resulting in social media backlash from Qatari residents and other Muslims.
Earlier this year, Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, lashed out at his nation’s U.S. ambassador, David Pressman, for consistently criticizing Hungary’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and prohibition against same-sex couples adopting children. Pressman himself identifies as gay and he and his partner have adopted children. Szijjártó said:
“It is irrelevant — absolutely irrelevant — what [Pressman] or any other ambassador thinks about domestic political developments in Hungary because it has nothing to do with them. It is not for him to interfere in Hungary’s internal affairs, and if he wishes to use his stay in Hungary to criticize the actions of a government elected by a clear majority of the Hungarian people and legitimized by the Hungarian people, he will have a very difficult job in working effectively to improve cooperation between the two countries.”
Del Turco said of Ambassador Brzezinski’s involvement in the Pride parade, “The U.S. Ambassador to Poland has gone so far as to malign pro-family activists and conservative Christians in Poland. It’s wildly inappropriate for an ambassador to speak this way, and it’s terrible diplomacy. … The U.S. embassy’s participation in Warsaw’s Pride parade is embarrassing.”
The Washington Stand reached out to Ambassador Brzezinski for comment on his participation in the Pride parade in Warsaw, specifically asking what such activity signifies for U.S. foreign policy. We were told Brzezinski “needs permission from Washington to talk with international (i.e. non-Polish) press” and were directed to the ambassador’s pro-Pride comments issued to the Associated Press.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
