The US on Thursday rebuked a Macedonian advocacy group for placing without authorization the seal of the US embassy in Skopje on billboards promoting the acceptance of homosexuality.
The State Department said the embassy had not given permission for the seal to be used on the billboards and insisted that Washington had neither paid for the signs nor necessarily endorsed their message.
"The Center for Civil and Human Rights ... inappropriately used the seal of the US embassy on a number of billboards as well as posters and brochures, the contents of which were not reviewed or approved by the United States," said Kurtis Cooper, a department spokesman.
"The billboards have been taken down," he said.
Cooper said the State Department had awarded a US$20,000 grant to the group in August 2002, and that the funding had gone to support a program that provided legal assistance and counseling to victims of discrimination.
The roadside signs, erected in Skopje and at least one other Macedonian city, had created a furor among conservatives in the US, who accused the embassy and the State Department of using US taxpayers' money to promote the "homosexual agenda" in the Balkan nation.
On Tuesday, a columnist for the conservative US publication National Review labelled the signs as "graphic," including photographs of same-sex embraces and one group of two women and a man resembling Jesus.
The billboards said, "Face Reality, The Campaign to Promote the Rights of Sexual Minorities," and bore the embassy seal on their lower right corners, columnist Kerri Houston reported.
"It seems that in Macedonia at least, support for the homosexual agenda has become the official position of the US State Department," she wrote.
Cooper denied that charge.
"US policies and programs do not promote homosexuality," he said, stressing that the initial grant to the group was provided to promote tolerance.
"Discrimination against and maltreatment of minorities, including those practices on the basis of sexual orientation is ... a matter of concern. The project in Macedonia is consistent with our policy of supporting tolerance and human dignity," he said.
Polls have shown that the vast majority of Macedonians disapprove strongly of homosexuality, with many believing it is a disease.
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