UN: Luxembourg's gay PM says everyone has a duty to challenge hate speech

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told the United Nations on Tuesday that as an openly gay politician he could not accept hate speech and everyone had a duty to challenge it.

In what advocates said was the first speech at the U.N. by an openly gay world leader on LGBT+ rights, Bettel called on world leaders to stop freedom of expression from leading to harm.

“We are all part and we all have a responsibility,” Bettel told an LGBT+ meeting during the U.N.’s annual General Assembly.

“This starts from ... your politicians but it goes also to a family evening, to dinner with friends, with family. If they have hate speech you can never accept it.”


Bettel, 46, who was re-elected for a second term in 2018, is one of three openly gay and lesbian leaders in the world along with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnabic. Read more via Reuters