The U.S. Senate has voted to block President Obama’s appointment of Mari Carmen Aponte as ambassador to El Salvador because of her attempts to push homosexual values on the country.

Mari Carmen Aponte

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) is reporting that in a 49-37 vote this week, the Senate rejected an attempt to move Aponte’s nomination forward. A Hispanic activist and attorney, Aponte drew criticism from pro-family groups in El Salvador for an opinion piece she wrote in the Salvadorian newspaper La Prensa Grafica in which she advocated for the recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

In the article, she called for increased efforts to prevent “negative perceptions” of homosexuality and to work towards a celebration of the “diversity of the Americas.”

Same-sex unions are not legally recognized in El Salvador where more than half of the population is Catholic. Recent opinion polls show that 80 percent of Salvadorians oppose the recognition of homosexual unions.

Pro-family groups were upset by the piece and accused Aponte of violating international law and rules of diplomacy by attempting to impose new values on the country. Other groups wrote to Congress to urge lawmakers to remove Aponte for disregarding the country’s culture and morality.

The Vienna Convention of the U.N. General Assembly obligates diplomats to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the receiving state.

This isn’t the first time Aponte has caused controversy. She was appointed 13 years ago by then-president Bill Clinton but withdrew her nomination after rumors surfaced about her live-in boyfriend’s connections to Cuban intelligence under Fidel Castro. She was later cleared by the FBI and has received top-secret security clearances multiple times.

Aponte has been serving as a temporary ambassador since September 2010 and needed Senate approval to continue in the post which expires at the end of the year.

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