Pence greeted by rainbow flags upon arrival in Iceland

Vice President Pence was greeted by a series of rainbow flags this week as he arrived in Reykjavik to meet with President Guðni Jóhannesson of Iceland.

Pence met with Jóhannesson on Wednesday at Hofdi House, across the street from the IT company Advania, which had lined its entrance with several rainbow flags, according to The Guardian.

{mosads}And a nearby office housing the headquarters for the Efling trade union swapped out the flags typically flying outside to display rainbow ones.

“We just felt the need to celebrate diversity today and wanted to show that by flying the flags,” Ægir Már Þórisson, Advania’s director, told the news outlet Iceland Monitor.

Photos of Pence’s meeting with Jóhannesson show the president wearing a rainbow bracelet on his right hand, which was visible when he shook hands with Pence.

so at his stop at Höfði (house where Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavík occurred), @vp was met by this not-so-subtle display and then the mayor said he grieved the loss of the INF treaty that emerged from the summit but was recently withdrawn from by the trump administration pic.twitter.com/89P8nQmupc

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) September 4, 2019

Eliza Reid, Iceland’s first lady, also wore a rainbow bracelet for the occasion.

The Guardian noted that Jóhannesson also wore the bracelet when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Pence has drawn criticism from gay rights groups for his positions on LGBTQ issues. As governor of Indiana, Pence signed a religious freedom law that was criticized as a pathway to legal anti-LGBTQ discrimination. When Pence was a member of Congress, he supported a constitutional amendment opposing same-sex marriage.