White House Excludes Gay First Spouse of Luxembourg From Photo Caption

[csziggy]

White House Excludes Gay First Spouse of Luxembourg From Photo Caption
By Chris Riotta On 5/27/17 at 6:08 PM

Updated | The White House Facebook page failed to acknowledge First Gentleman of Luxembourg Gauthier Destenay, married to Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, in a post featuring the spouses of world leaders attending this week’s G7 summit in Sicily. The photo caption included the names of every other spouse, all of them wives, beginning with: "First Lady Melania Trump poses with Belgium’s Queen Mathilde, center, and other spouses of NATO leaders."

The omission of Destenay's name in the official White House post remained for at least six hours on Saturday before Daily Beast editor Scott Bixby shared a screenshot on Twitter, writing: "Is there a reason the White House didn't include the First Gentleman of Luxembourg in this photo caption? Like, a non-homophobic one?"

Late Saturday night, nearly twelve hours after the uproar over the photo started, the caption was updated to include the first gentleman of Luxembourg, the only homosexual spouse included in the photo. The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The photo, taken by White House photographer Andrea Hanks, shows Melania Trump front and center with Queen Mathilde, surrounded by First Gentleman Gauthier Destnary of Luxembourg, First Lady Emine Erdoğan of Turkey, Iceland’s Thora Margret Baldvinsdottir, First Lady of France Brigitte Macron, Slovenia’s Mojca Stropnik, Bulgaria’s Desislava Radeva, Belgium’s Amélie Derbaudrenghien and Norway’s Ingrid Schulerud.

More: http://www.newsweek.com/white-house-facebook-omits-gay-first-gentleman-luxemborg-gauthier-destenay-616889
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ETA - This reminds me of when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was edited out of the photo when Ben Laden was killed.

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Bonus - Video: The Trumpshake: A Look into the President's Peculiar Handshake

[leftstreet]

1. This makes no sense. Where were spouses of all leaders?

If this photo was only of 'wives' or 'lady spouses,' why would a gay man be included?

Was there a corresponding photo of 'husbands' of world leaders?

[Princess Turandot]

3. Merkel's husband does not usually join her at these meetings...

He's a professor at a uni in Germany, in one of the hard sciences.

I assume that May's husband also did not attend.

[csziggy]

5. It was a photo of the spouses of the leaders at the G7

I see your confusion perhaps because of this phrase: "The photo caption included the names of every other spouse, all of them wives..."

I believe that meant that the original caption provided by the White House included only the names of the wives and not that of the only spouse in the photo who is a partner in a same sex marriage.

Not all spouses attend the meetings with their husbands and if they do they may elect to not have their photo taken with a group. When they do decide to do so, the caption should include their names!

[leftstreet]

6. Ah that makes sense

Thanks

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. There are, of course, only two explanations:

(1) homophobia, or (2) incompetence, either of which is plausible. Did they (whoever "they" might be in this instance) think they could get away with omitting M. Destinay's name altogether to disrespect his relationship, and nobody would notice? Or was it another of many instances of the error-ridden sloppiness of so many of the public statements, tweets, posts, etc. coming out of this WH? It seems like almost everything produced by whoever is handling these things (somebody's kid? Barron Trump? an 18-year-old intern?) is full of typos and other assorted errors that get hastily fixed when someone points them out.

[malaise]

4. Just read this in the Guardian

They are sick