The Daily Caller is reporting that President Barack Obama made the announcement while courting the gay vote at a $10,000 per-plate fundraiser in New York City on Tuesday. Under the new policy, U.S. government officials will be directed to lobby foreign governments and voters to win legal rights for gays and lesbians, to approve their applications for asylum, to fund foreign gay-advocacy groups and retaliate against groups that mistreat gays and lesbians.
“The struggle to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons is a global challenge, and one that is central to the United States commitment to promoting human rights,” said a Dec. 6 White House memorandum to overseas agency heads.
Gay activists welcomed the move.
“As Americans, we understand that no one should be made a criminal or subject to violence or even death because of who they are, no matter where they live,” said Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese said in a statement. “Today’s actions by President Obama make clear that the United States will not turn a blind eye when governments commit or allow abuses to the human rights of LGBT people.”
The LGBT community enjoys considerable clout with the current administration mostly because Obama won 75 percent of their vote in 2008 and because wealthy gays are known to donate heavily to his campaign.
If implemented, the new policy could complicate Obama’s outreach to Muslim countries where homosexuality is not tolerated and even warrants the death penalty in some cultures. At a time when radical Islamic groups are growing in political power in Egypt, Turkey, Libya and Tunisia, the new policy could lead to a new wave of criminal punishments and a new flow of refugees into U.S. embassies.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out in favor of the policy, saying that “Gay people are born into and belong in every society around the world,” including in “all faiths.”
She went on to compare anti-gay discrimination to honor-killing, widow-burning and female genital mutilation, which are practiced by Arab, African and Indian societies. “No practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us,” she said, without mentioning Islam specifically.
Opponents of the mainstreaming of homosexuality are also speaking out against the new policy.
“We would certainly not support any violence against homosexuals, whether by the citizenry or by the government, but… we do not think that homosexual conduct should be established as a human right, either at the international or domestic level,” said Peter Sprigg, a fellow at the Family Research Council.
He went on to say that marriage is needed to bind parents to their children, and to legalize marriage for same-sex couples would be tantamount to converting the institution of marriage into little more than a tool to raise the social status of gays and lesbians.
Advocates of marriage for same-sex couples, Spriggs says, believe “the most important thing about marriage is satisfying adults’ desires and rights, instead of meeting children’s needs and rights.”
The presidential directive applies to all U.S. agencies involved in foreign aid, assistance and development, including the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security.
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