Swedish Embassy Hosts Controversial LGBTQ Republican Event During World Pride
The Swedish Embassy in Washington DC opened its rooftop terrace to organized LGBTQ Republicans during World Pride. Jonas Gardell reports from an unusual evening.
CULTURAL DEBATE. While in Washington for World Pride, I found myself at a networking party for Log Cabin, an organization for LGBTQ Republicans.
"Gay men for Trump," one might call them.
Or rather, the event took place at the Swedish Embassy, and when I asked former chairman Charles Moran why it was held there, he said it was an invitation from the ambassador himself.
When I later asked embassy staff how this came about, they replied it was "their job," which is true, and that they saw contacts with Log Cabin as a gateway to the White House.
Still, it felt strange. The embassy's website mentioned nothing about the event, focusing instead on National Day celebrations and a photo of MP Ulrika Westerlund participating in a panel at the Human Rights Conference, where I was invited to speak.
So perhaps it was a bit embarrassing for the Swedes.
And LGBTQ? I didn't see a single woman drinking cocktails and eating canapés on the embassy's rooftop terrace, and certainly no transgender individuals.
In his welcome speech, Charles Moran, wearing an ill-fitting pink blazer, praised the USA as the freest country in the world, in that way Americans love to do without ever providing statistics to back up the claim.
It's always just been a truth in the USA. The USA is the freest country. That's just how it is.
He then claimed, as if it were equally obvious, that President Trump is the first president in US history to do something for the LGBTQ community.
Not least because Trump has banned all equality work, plans to dismiss all transgender people in the army, and has asserted that there are only two genders, among other things.
Melania Trump was described by several gay Republicans I spoke with as an angel.
It was astonishing.
Completely unabashed, just like that, without any evidence, freely lying.
And no one contradicted him. Perhaps because it would feel what? Rude?
His speech was interspersed with two city councilors from Stockholm who mostly wanted to promote Stockholm as a travel destination, since our Swedish capital is so inclusive.
Then the man in the ill-fitting pink blazer took over the microphone again and continued to praise Trump and the new administration, which has finally cleaned house with the left.
Behind him—the embassy's rooftop terrace offers a breathtaking view—the Kennedy Center lit up the twilight, wrapped in red, white, and blue. The cultural center should have been lit in rainbow colors during Pride, but not now.
Board members have been replaced, Trump has personally taken over as chairman and fired the center's CEO, and the human rights conference that Ulrika Westerlund and I were there to participate in had been kicked out of the cultural center, where it was originally supposed to take place.
A rainbow contains all colors. The cultural center's only allowed ones are now the American ones.
Charles Moran continued his speech, unabashedly making it clear to the host, the Swedish Embassy on whose rooftop terrace we were, that now that we Swedes are in NATO, it's finally time to pay up, because the USA is tired of it.
You know, like when someone in power can grin and spew whatever nonsense and lies they want because they know the subordinates have no choice but to stand there, nod, grin, and swallow whatever crap comes out of their mouth.
I can't find a better word than "subordinates," because it was clear that's what we present Swedes were considered to be. Next to him stood the Swedish ambassador, nodding and seeming to ponder what the gay Republican was saying.
In turn, the Swedish ambassador praised, as I assume is an ambassador's duty, the friendship and cooperation between the two countries, emphasized how large our economy with the USA is in proportion to how small we are, and stressed how extremely happy he was that this event could take place.
If the Kennedy Center is a fortress that has fallen into Trump's hands, then we who stood there on the terrace and didn't belong to the cheek-kissing Trump gays felt like a kind of hostages.
Log Cabin seemed truly ecstatic about the event at the embassy. There was something euphoric about the whole affair, and it wasn't hard to get the organization's leaders to talk—read: brag extensively—about how perfect their existence is now, and how we as LGBTQ people have nothing to fear from Trump.
On the contrary.
In fact, the entire Trump family loves gays, Andrew Minik, a member of Log Cabin's leadership, explained to me, "except maybe Barron, but he's barely 18... anyway, he probably will, just wait and see."
Then he started talking about Melania and got even more excited.
"Especially Melania loves gays, she LOVES us, she would never let Donald do anything that threatened us. She's an angel!"
Melania Trump was described by several gay Republicans I spoke with as an angel.
"She is an angel!"
And they meant it literally.
They recounted how she came to their meeting at the Republican convention, the only meeting she attended, and she chose them! And she had sort of floated through the room. Like an angel. For real! An angel!
Donald Trump in all his glory. Everyone on the terrace believed that Melania is the Republicans' greatest asset, queen, and goddess.
And when I asked about the conservative Christians, they quickly dismissed the idea that they could pose any threat.
They will never gain any real influence over the party. Should the Christians want to get at gays, Trump would kick them out.
"He would kick them out."
Just hours later, questions started coming in from other American LGBTQ activists and organizations: What has Sweden done? What has Sweden agreed to? Why has it opened its embassy to "gays for Trump"? Sweden, which has always been perceived as an ally in LGBTQ issues. Someone you could really trust.
It is, of course, good and important that these questions are asked, and that the embassy is clear about what it hoped to gain.
And the opposite: what it might risk losing.
Because if the answer is that you should be able to talk to everyone and have a dialogue, I must say that a dialogue presupposes a give and take on equal terms.
On this particular evening, we mostly stood astonished and silent on the embassy's rooftop terrace while the gay Republicans spewed falsehoods about Trump and transgender people, mixed with outright insults about Sweden as dusk fell and the Kennedy Center shone ever brighter in the American colors.
Just a week after the Pride parade, a completely different kind of parade is marching through Washington. For the first time in over 30 years, a large military parade will take place with fighter jets, troops, and heavy tanks.
Love, equality, and inclusion versus male dominance based on military power.
No rainbow in sight.
Jonas Gardell is an author and contributor to Expressen's culture page.