WASHINGTON — Daniel Baer was sworn in Wednesday as the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe.
Baer’s appointment is one of five high profile diplomatic positions awarded to openly gay men by the Obama Administration during the president’s second term.
A former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Baer was sworn in at the U.S. State Department in Washington by Uzra Zeye, an acting Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Baer was accompanied by his partner Brian Walsh, and will soon be headed to the U.S. Mission to OSCE headquarters in Vienna, Austria.
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Speaking with the Washington Blade after the ceremony, the new Ambassador said that he could have never believed he would go on to achieve such success when he was in high school, believing his sexual orientation would be a barrier in his life.
“I remember a very sad and lonely junior and high school student in 1994 who wondered whether it was possible for him ever to be happy, and wondered whether it was worth going on,’ Baer said.
“Certainly, he would have been shocked to see today’s ceremony,” he said.
