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.
Well lookee here. Obama is going to go poke a hornet’s nest in Russia. Not sure why Putin is allowing this.
Obama to meat gay activists in Russia
Don't be so quick to praise them. It has been declining but Russia still has the highest abortion rate in the world; even higher than China.
With all the other BS on the radar, Obama finds this to be important? The guy is sooo out of touch it isn’t funny.
When Obama meets with the gay activists in Afghanistan, I might be interested.
I’ve vowed if it’s Hillary vs NJFatboy in Nov 2016 I’m writing in Putin....
Putin should send a bunch of cross dressers to visit the White House and give Michelle some fashion tips.
Doesn’t Russia have a law against consorting with Faggots?
Lock Obama up and let’s see the Wise old Vice president work to get him out.
LMAO
These gays will be strangely unavailable. They have the intel on who they are. Done... no meeting.
Arrest him under the new Russia Propaganda law
So, is Obama gonna suck down a few brewski’s while there? (Had to go there...)
Putin should lock him up for violating Russian law by conspiring with homosexuals.
zero: pos ba##ard disgusting scumbag a##hat
impossible to have good wishes for it, only the opposite
if it were up to its neck in quicksand, I would run away quickly
I hope Putin dumps some serious humiliation on it.
That’s what I’d do.
Obama is an insensitive clod.
Wonder how he would like it if Putin came here and met with Tea Party people, and put out press releases saying how much he respected them, and realized right off that they were the true loyalists that grasped the concepts of our FOUNDING FATHERS.
Then he could add, and Obama is essentially ruling by fiat and breaking his oath almost every day.
“I don’t see accommodating sodomites as a human rights issue.”
Of course it’s not. It’s about shoring up his base, which he is losing right now. He has lost a ton of approval points over Obamacare, the scandals, and now this Syria war.
He knows he will never gin up any votes for the D’s in the mid-terms from conservatives, so he doesn’t bother. He’s in this to pander to the gay / liberal vote.
If I were Putin, I would be talking to some of my KGB buddies.
Does Obama meet with the victims of IRS targeting...hell to the no....how about the australian family killed by feral thugs...or has he meet again with the parents and spouses of those killed in Benghazi on 9/11/12...
I hate to write this but what an ah*le to meet with Russian gays while ignoring Americans.
Or .... maybe Putin will uphold the laws of HIS country and arrest the sodomites as they are meeting with Obama. Wonder what Obungle would do about that besides throw a hissy fit.
Yes. They shake “it’.
ha, that would be so funny, imagine on live tv, gays frog marched off the set hahahaha
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