LGBT News Strip-search of U.S.-Indian consul leads to gay diplomats spouses threatened

While I certainly do not think it was appropriate to strip search Devyani Khobragade (unless they thought she had a weapon and posed harm to herself or others), India is being absolutely ridiculous. The threats they are making and the actions they are taking are vastly out of proportion to what happened. Removing the security barriers puts people at the embassy at risk of bomb attacks - that's why they are there...

...and as for their threats against same-sex spouses. They are absolutely disgusting.

My personal opinion is that the President should immediately recall the entire U.S. embassy in India to the United States. A travel advisory should also be issued for all LGBT people considering traveling to India and it should be actively discouraged.

I might have him leave a small handful of people behind, but have them operate out of the Swedish Embassy. They would remain there to keep the dialog and negotiations with India open.

Finally, I'd deport Devyani Khobragade, her family, and any Indian residents living in her household (such as her housekeeper) back to India. Her pass to return to the United States would be revoked.

We don't even know fully what happened with Khobragade yet. I assume that whoever strip searched her knew she was an important diplomat from India and the repercussions for doing so wouldn't be good. Thus, ideally, they had good reason to do so.

I wouldn't formally re-open the embassy to India until:
1. An agreement can be reached with India to ensure it's safety, and that further security stunts like this wouldn't happen again in the future.

2. That same-sex spouses / partners are treated with dignity and respect, and won't be harassed by the law.

And as this happens the President and Secretary of State should openly and actively condemn the ruling by the Indian Supreme Court, just to make undeniably clear where the United States stands.

There are a handful of other things the United States can do if it wants to send a further message to India. Regardless, I'd make it clear that this shit is taken seriously and is completely unacceptable.

We don't even have all the details of what happened yet. I don't blame them for being angry, but their reactions are completely out of proportion to what happened.

....and let's not forget what Khobragade is accused of:

 

While I don't think she should have been strip searched, I feel her arrest was legitimate, if she was indeed keeping her housekeeper in a kind of wage-slavery situation, and only paying her $3/hr. I think anyone who violates US wage laws should go to jail; it's not as if minimum wage is all that much.

I also feel the Indian government reaction is crazy; granted, emotions may be running high, but then they have to drag anti-gay sentiment into things, which seems bizarre and unrelated.

 

I feel like there's more to the story...

Does she have any type of clearance or higher standing? I find it very hard to believe that she was arrested and treated like such for a documentation problem? Did someone think she wasn't actually who she was? Did she not have proof?

The skeptic in me feels like this is being made out to be a big problem. Anyone else feeling similarly?

 

It's a mess about nothing; both governments are just trying to get some sort of concession from the other and prove diplomatic strength.

 

I definitely think there is more to the story. It just seems bizarre to treat someone in the United States on official business from a foreign government this way WITHOUT good cause. I'm fairly sure standard procedure was followed, as the U.S. State Department claims, but it seems highly unlikely to me that those standard procedures wouldn't have been violated to avoid an international dispute the likes of which is now unfolding.

So, my guess is one of two things happened... First, some cop or whatever really fucked up bad and caused an international dispute. Alternatively, there will be more charges filed and we find out that sweet innocent Miss Khobragade here was up to some serious illegal shit. I think one of those two things are likely to be revealed in the future.

 

It doesn't state,
From what I've gathered,
That they attacked or threatened the people because they were LGBT,
They rather did so because they were American.

Furthermore I've known of MANY American embassies across the world(I visited my friends parents in the buildings),
And the barricading of roads by these embassies has been quite obstructive to traffic flow in MANY cities,
I mean you can check out the one in Amman!

And I'd say this is rather the boiling point of being so disrespected by American diplomacy,
Because in the end this was not a first,
Not the first for India,
And not the first for other countries deemed to be more "backwards",
Third world countries or non-Western countries are almost ALWAYS treated like babies in regards to diplomacy,
And in some ways,
Although this was not a very constructive effort on either side,
I am glad they're at least standing up for their right to demand respect.

 

What gets me is that no one in India seems to care about how the housekeeper was mistreated. Where is the outrage for her? The caste system is alive and well...but let's move on to more important things, like arresting people for being gay. Yes, that's the solution...

 

America is so over the top at times.