The White House is facing backlash after they omitted the first openly gay Prime Minister’s husband from a photo caption.
Gauthier Destenay, who married Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel in 2015, was photographed along with the wives of the other leaders at the Nato summit in Brussels last week.
The image was then shared on The White House’s official Facebook page.
The photo was captioned with the names of the partners, including First Lady Melanie Trump but Luxembourg’s First Gentleman, architect Gauthier Destenay, was excluded from the detailed list.
It read: “First Lady Melania Trump poses with Belgium’s Queen Mathilde, center, and other spouses of Natoleaders: First Lady Emine Erdoğan of Turkey; Iceland’sThora Margret Baldvinsdottir; the First Lady of France Brigitte Trogneux; First Lady Melania Trump; Slovenia’s Mojca Stropnik; Bulgaria’s DesislavaRadeva; Belgium’s Amélie Derbaudrenghien, and Norway’s Ingrid Schulerud, during their visit Thursday 25 May 2917 [sic], at the Royal Palace in Brussels.”
The omission of Gauthier Destenay’s name has caused outrage, with a number of people accusing the White House staff of “blatant disrespect”.
The caption has since been changed, nine hours after it was posted online.
Despite being corrected, the original error can still be seen when the edit history is accessed.
LGBT rights organisation GLAAD left a comment on the image asking “What about Luxembourg’s openly gay First Husband?”
One person wrote: “Wow. No mention of the Luxembourg spouse? He still exists even if you try to ignore the fact he is a homosexual.”
“So wonderful to see a first husband! So sad the White House is either too ignorant or too petty to actually name him,” someone else said.
Another added: “What an ignorance and disrespectful message toward Luxembourg. The First Gentleman of Luxembourg is IN THIS PICTURE and you choose to ignore him obviously?”
The White House has not apologised for the exclusion or explained how it happened.
Prime Minister Bettel is currently the only national leader in a gay marriage.
They married just two months after Luxembourg introduced same-sex marriage.
However, Bettel is not the first openly gay leader. In 2010 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, then the Prime Minister of Iceland, became the first leader to marry her same-sex partner.
