The Pink Embassy

[JR2008 0]

On September 24, 2001, Michael E. Guest, an openly gay man, was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Romania. Guest's presence made Bucharest a more attractive assignment for other gays in the Foreign Service.

Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA)*, lists increasing opportunities for same-sex partners accompanying personnel on assignment overseas and securing taxpayer-funded health insurance and benefits for the partners and children of lesbian and gay employees in its mission statement. As the gay marriage debate raged at home, taxpayers began to foot the bill for defacto union in Bucharest.

Advertisements for the annual Christmas parties invited not just spouses but partners. Suddenly it was like there was a club running thing, said one Foreign Service veteran who had been stationed there. If you weren’t part of the gay clique, you did not belong. After Guest began his mission, the persistent recognition and endorsement of same-sex partners prevented a devout Evenglical Christian and father of five, who had been accustomed to his post being a family-friendly environment, from participating in certain events to avoid having to explain homosexuality to his young children.

Others who have worked in Bucharest claim that the cultural shift at the embassy was not limited to the formal approval of same-sex relationships and make graver charges. These witnesses claim that promiscuity among some Americans stationed in Romania increased to levels that threatened to jeopardize the mission's reputation and subject U.S. government employees to blackmail. They stated that some diplomats were engaging in homosexual relations with Romanian citizens and other foreign nationals.

Such dalliances led some to ridicule the U.S. diplomatic presence in Romania as the pink embassy and the Bucharest bathhouse. A letter sent by a group of Romanian NGOs and individuals to President Bush and Secretary Powell in January named high-level appointees responsible for having "transformed the U.S. diplomatic addresses in to havens of debauchery", and further alleges that ased on reports and pornographic photos circulating around newspapers they.. use their privileged positions to corrupt young Romanians, paying them for sexual relations, by both cash and visas to the U.S. The signatories of this letter include the Union of War Veterans, the National League of December 1989 Combatants, and three former Romanian parliament members.

An erstwhile gay lover of a former high-ranking official at the USAID mission in Bucharest has described such conduct in a sworn statement. He says that he lived with this official for four years in his government housing under the guise of serving as household help. There he claims to have witnessed U.S. government employees engaged in lewd acts and entering into other compromising positions.

According to his deposition, these acts included multiple sexual encounters with young Romanian men, some of whom may have been minors. The high-ranking USAID official's taxpayer-provided residence was said to be the site of wild sexually charged parties where participants allegedly used drugs and viewed pornography. He states that this official has made sexually explicit photographs of himself available on the Internet. He accuses other officials of paying for sexual favors as well as offering foreign nationals visas in exchange for money or sex. Asked for comment, the USAID press office said it was unaware of any such allegations. Calls to the Inspector General's office were not returned.

Over the last ten years, GLIFAA, or Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, has helped the quality of life of gays and lesbians in the Department of State and USAID - James P. Theis, 2001-2002 GLIFAA president.

This goes beyond moral and cultural tensions over homosexuality. If true, these serious betrayals of diplomatic responsibility are incompatible with the professional climate required to represent this country abroad effectively. Contrary to a firm U.S. policy against illicit sexual liaisons and the corruption of minors, they would constitute illegal acts using taxpayers' property and money with the potential to harm national security.

In addition, our national reputation has suffered enough recent damage in Romania due to the case of Kurt Treptow, a prominent historian the U.S. embassy in Bucharest placed on the Fulbright Commission. Yet Treptow was a convicted sex offender. He videotaped himself engaging in sexual acts with children as young as seven, some of whom were allegedly orphans, and was sentenced to seven years in Romanian prison for pedophilia and child abuse.

"How important it is to keep working past how comfortable we are in our own issues, and how our work here resonates with gay youth,” says Bryan Dalton, a founder and former president of GLIFAA.

In addition to the allegations about Guest’s role in Treptow appointment, newspaper articles accused Guest of poor leadership in presiding over an embassy that the paper says is plagued by mismanagement. Several of the articles accuse embassy officials, including Guest, of engaging in influence-peddling in the appointment of outsiders to embassy posts. One article accuses the embassy of assisting U.S. citizens in obtaining legal assistance in Romania to adopt children in what it calls a multi-million dollar adoption effort in which U.S.-owned adoption agencies allegedly charge $10,000 or more to facilitate adoptions for Americans.

In July 2004, Guest was recalled to the U.S. Department of State following a yearlong onslaught of articles in an English language newspaper in Bucharest accusing Guest of corruption and mismanagement. Whoever is posted as U.S. ambassador to Romania will be responsible for maintaining acceptable standards of conduct. On December 4, 2007, Guest resigned (retired) over State Department's discrimination against gay and lesbian employees.

[wifetobe 2]

Kindly, can a mod move this to the off topic forum.... thanks

[JR2008 0]

Unless you're a **, here's the relevance:

When Bill Clinton selected the homosexual James Hormel to become ambassador to Luxembourg, some senators objected to Hormel not due to his sexual orientation as such but rather because he was considered likely to use his ambassadorship as a government-sanctioned platform for gay-rights advocacy. There were no similar concerns about Guest, who was a 20-year career diplomat, lifelong Republican, and former Reagan administration press aide.

Now I find out the Bucharest Romania has a reputation for being perhaps the least accomodating embassy when it comes to fiance visa applicants. When your turn comes you are called to stand before a bullet-proof panel of glass and to speak to your beligerant and uncooperative interviewer as s/he barks questions, refuses to explain procedures and is likely to send you off on a wild goose-chase for more documentation at a whim. Evidently Bucharest has had a lot of complaints and peope who are familar with the Ukrainian Embassy mention the stark contrast between it and the embassy in Romania. I have to send my fiance and her Rusiian speaking mother there in a few months. There is no way I can make another trip to accompany her. And, it seems, that Bucharest officials are known for arbitrarily deciding that a fiance visa application is a sham, especially if the American fiance isn't there. So how did I get all the luck? (2004)

Those bisbehaving 5 to 9 don't behave 9 to 5 either.

[Staashi 371]

Now I find out the Bucharest Romania has a reputation for being perhaps the least accomodating embassy when it comes to fiance visa applicants. When your turn comes you are called to stand before a bullet-proof panel of glass and to speak to your beligerant and uncooperative interviewer as s/he barks questions, refuses to explain procedures and is likely to send you off on a wild goose-chase for more documentation at a whim. Evidently Bucharest has had a lot of complaints and peope who are familar with the Ukrainian Embassy mention the stark contrast between it and the embassy in Romania. I have to send my fiance and her Rusiian speaking mother there in a few months. There is no way I can make another trip to accompany her. And, it seems, that Bucharest officials are known for arbitrarily deciding that a fiance visa application is a sham, especially if the American fiance isn't there. So how did I get all the luck? (2004)

Those bisbehaving 5 to 9 don't behave 9 to 5 either.

Actually cookie, this sounds just like every other embassy out there - gay or not.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Unless you're a **, here's the relevance:

When Bill Clinton selected the homosexual James Hormel to become ambassador to Luxembourg, some senators objected to Hormel not due to his sexual orientation as such but rather because he was considered likely to use his ambassadorship as a government-sanctioned platform for gay-rights advocacy. There were no similar concerns about Guest, who was a 20-year career diplomat, lifelong Republican, and former Reagan administration press aide.

Now I find out the Bucharest Romania has a reputation for being perhaps the least accomodating embassy when it comes to fiance visa applicants. When your turn comes you are called to stand before a bullet-proof panel of glass and to speak to your beligerant and uncooperative interviewer as s/he barks questions, refuses to explain procedures and is likely to send you off on a wild goose-chase for more documentation at a whim. Evidently Bucharest has had a lot of complaints and peope who are familar with the Ukrainian Embassy mention the stark contrast between it and the embassy in Romania. I have to send my fiance and her Rusiian speaking mother there in a few months. There is no way I can make another trip to accompany her. And, it seems, that Bucharest officials are known for arbitrarily deciding that a fiance visa application is a sham, especially if the American fiance isn't there. So how did I get all the luck? (2004)

Those bisbehaving 5 to 9 don't behave 9 to 5 either.

You just won the prize for homophobic jerk of the month. Keep up the good work.

[Staashi 371]

Unless you're a **, here's the relevance:

When Bill Clinton selected the homosexual James Hormel to become ambassador to Luxembourg, some senators objected to Hormel not due to his sexual orientation as such but rather because he was considered likely to use his ambassadorship as a government-sanctioned platform for gay-rights advocacy. There were no similar concerns about Guest, who was a 20-year career diplomat, lifelong Republican, and former Reagan administration press aide.

Now I find out the Bucharest Romania has a reputation for being perhaps the least accomodating embassy when it comes to fiance visa applicants. When your turn comes you are called to stand before a bullet-proof panel of glass and to speak to your beligerant and uncooperative interviewer as s/he barks questions, refuses to explain procedures and is likely to send you off on a wild goose-chase for more documentation at a whim. Evidently Bucharest has had a lot of complaints and peope who are familar with the Ukrainian Embassy mention the stark contrast between it and the embassy in Romania. I have to send my fiance and her Rusiian speaking mother there in a few months. There is no way I can make another trip to accompany her. And, it seems, that Bucharest officials are known for arbitrarily deciding that a fiance visa application is a sham, especially if the American fiance isn't there. So how did I get all the luck? (2004)

Those bisbehaving 5 to 9 don't behave 9 to 5 either.

You just won the prize for homophobic jerk of the month. Keep up the good work.

I second that one, sister!

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Unless you're a **, here's the relevance:

When Bill Clinton selected the homosexual James Hormel to become ambassador to Luxembourg, some senators objected to Hormel not due to his sexual orientation as such but rather because he was considered likely to use his ambassadorship as a government-sanctioned platform for gay-rights advocacy. There were no similar concerns about Guest, who was a 20-year career diplomat, lifelong Republican, and former Reagan administration press aide.

Now I find out the Bucharest Romania has a reputation for being perhaps the least accomodating embassy when it comes to fiance visa applicants. When your turn comes you are called to stand before a bullet-proof panel of glass and to speak to your beligerant and uncooperative interviewer as s/he barks questions, refuses to explain procedures and is likely to send you off on a wild goose-chase for more documentation at a whim. Evidently Bucharest has had a lot of complaints and peope who are familar with the Ukrainian Embassy mention the stark contrast between it and the embassy in Romania. I have to send my fiance and her Rusiian speaking mother there in a few months. There is no way I can make another trip to accompany her. And, it seems, that Bucharest officials are known for arbitrarily deciding that a fiance visa application is a sham, especially if the American fiance isn't there. So how did I get all the luck? (2004)

Those bisbehaving 5 to 9 don't behave 9 to 5 either.

You just won the prize for homophobic jerk of the month. Keep up the good work.

I second that one, sister!

No kidding. what a fvcktard.

[JR2008 0]

Relax, my lesbo fvcktard sisters! The guy above is correct in saying that this happens at almost every consulate. Nonetheless, these same consulates deny your visas for "ethical" reasons - see my link Visa Denials http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=148299.

Edited September 13, 2008 by JR2008

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

Relax, my lesbo fvcktard sisters! The guy above is correct in saying that this happens at almost every consulate. Nonetheless, these same consulates deny your visas for "ethical" reasons - see my link Visa Denials http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=148299.

JR this language is not acceptable here. Please check your email.