Marco Rubio bans rainbow flags at embassies

On Tuesday this week, Secretary of State Mark Rubio announced a “One Flag Policy,” permitting the display of three flags at U.S.A. outposts: the U.S.A. flag, the POW/MIA flag, and the Hostages and Wrongful Detainees flag, as reported by the rightwing Free Beacon.

The order states, “Starting immediately, only the United States of America flag is authorised to be flown or displayed at U.S. facilities, both domestic and abroad, and featured in U.S. government content,” according to the Free Beacon. “The flag of the United States of America united all Americans under the universal principles of justice, liberty, and democracy. These values, which are the bedrock of our great country, are shared by all American citizens, past and present.”

According to ‘LGBTQ Nation’, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) praised the ban, stating, “I’m not tired of winning!!” in a post on X, echoing Donald Trump’s 2016 claim that “we’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.”

The display of rainbow flags at embassies has caused controversy between Republican and Democratic administrations for years, with Democrats asserting that the U.S.A. has a responsibility to promote human rights globally, while Republicans counter that LGBTQ+ rights should not be classified as human rights.

In 2023, House Republicans introduced a bill to prohibit rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter banners at embassies, with Rep. Greene labelling such symbols as “Hate America flags” in her statement.

“President Biden’s State Department has already raised a flag over our embassies that doesn’t represent the vast majority of Americans,” she remarked. Her statement further described BLM as a “radical Marxist group” and “domestic terrorists” aiming to “bring mass destruction to our country through Communism.”

During Trump’s first term, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo instructed the U.S.A. embassy in Seoul, South Korea, to take down a rainbow Pride flag and BLM banner from the outside of its chancery. The embassy had displayed the BLM flag to demonstrate “solidarity” and “support for the fight against racial injustice and police brutality as we strive to be a more inclusive & just society.”

In June 2019, Trump's State Department denied at least four requests from U.S. embassies worldwide to display the rainbow flag during Pride month. Nevertheless, embassies defied Trump and raised Pride flags without authorisation. Vice President Mike Pence later supported the administration's prohibition, asserting that only American flags should be displayed outside embassies.

President Joe Biden’s administration overturned Trump’s restriction on rainbow flags at embassies. Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed American embassies and diplomatic missions that they could once again fly the Pride flag, as well as “other symbols connoting support for LGBTQ rights based on what is ‘appropriate in light of local conditions.’”

During his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2021, Blinken emphasised his intention to implement policies that would enable American embassies to advocate for and protect LGBTQ+ rights globally by displaying the rainbow flag.

“We’ve seen violence directed against LGBTQI people around the world increase,” Blinken stated before the committee. “We’ve seen, I believe, the highest number of murders of transgender people, particularly women of color, that we’ve seen ever… and so I think the United States playing the role that it should be playing in standing up for and defending the rights of LGBTQI people is something that the Department is going to take on and take on immediately.”

Rubio has consistently opposed equal rights for LGBTQ+ individuals, endorsing a ban on same-sex couples adopting in Florida and rejecting the Equality Act, which aims to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ people at the federal level, in the Senate.

In early 2023, he successfully pressured a U.S.A. Air Force base to cancel a Drag Queen Story Hour event that had been planned for the base’s library in recognition of Pride Month.