US restricts visas to unmarried gay diplomats

WASHINGTON: The United States is denying visas to the partners of more than 100 gay diplomats unless they get married, officials said.

The move comes as President Donald Trump’s administration chips away at protections of the LGBTQ community, although officials cast the decision as motivated by legal reciprocity rather than an anti-gay agenda.

Under the new guidelines, diplomats regardless of sexual orientation will need to be married by the end of the year in order for their partners to receive visas.

Under a previous policy implemented by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the United States issued visas to same-sex partners regardless of their marital status.

Around 105 families are affected by the decision, of whom 55 are posted at US-based international organisations such as the United Nations, a State Department official said.

Diplomats can still obtain visas for their partners if they get mar- ried, including if they do so while in the United States.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power decried the Trump administration’s move as “needlessly cruel and bigoted”. She noted that only 12% of UN member states allow same-sex marriage.

The Human Rights Campaign, the leading US gay rights group, called the decision “unnecessary, mean-spirited and unacceptable”.

“This is an unconscionable, need- less attack on LGBTQ diplomats from around the world, and it reflects the hostility of the Trump-Pence administration towards LGBTQ people,” said the group’s government affairs director David Stacy.

A US official countered that the policy creates the same conditions for visas that the State Department sets for its own diplomats serving abroad in light of the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalised samesex marriage across the United States.