Deroy Murdock: Trump's global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality merits gay pride
In nearly 70 nations, homosexuality is no parade. It’s illegal and triggers jail -- or worse.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As another Pride month winds down, much of the civilized world has enjoyed four weeks of public, conspicuous, and unfettered celebrations by gay people. This occasion no longer raises eyebrows, as most people have heeded an old, liberationist chant and “got used to it.”
But in nearly 70 nations, homosexuality is no parade. It’s illegal and triggers jail sentences and even executions for gays whom these antiquated, inhumane statutes ensnare.
Thankfully, the Trump administration is working to decriminalize homosexuality overseas. Until June 1, Ambassador Richard Grenell, 53, spearheaded this endeavor.
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He recently left Washington after serving as President Donald J. Trump’s envoy to Germany and, since February 20, Acting Director of National Intelligence. The latter position made Grenell America’s first openly gay Cabinet member — a distinction unachieved under the Obama-Biden administration or any other Democrat presidency.
“President Trump believes the United States should make clear that criminalizing homosexuality is wrong,” Grenell told me. “There are currently 69 countries that make being gay a crime, and that means we must have 69 different strategies.” These nations include allies and enemies, primarily in the Middle East and Africa.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This challenge was key to Grenell’s diplomacy.
“I have met with many foreign Ambassadors, Ministers and Heads of State to make clear that the U.S. is making this initiative a priority,” Grenell said. “Our European partners have been helpful and continue to raise the issue,” he observed. “We have received overwhelming private support from many foreign officials for our efforts, but we now need that private support to become public action.”
Some powers have come forward. Others are weighing more vocal assent.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“We are grateful that the British government and the French government have agreed to consult with former colonies to untangle leftover laws still calling for the criminalization of homosexuality,” Grenell explained. “I have even spoken with a Shia cleric who is considering a public pronouncement against the criminalization of homosexuality.”
An official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence noted that Grenell “led the U.S. government’s global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality,” starting in February 2019. “The U.S. campaign is rooted in the National Security Strategy, which fights for the human dignity of every person.”
Grenell instructed the 16 intelligence agencies that he supervised to focus on this undertaking and devise relevant recommendations, due soon. Even pre-Grenell, the intelligence community led in this realm. As the ODNI official explained: “IC Pride was rated the #1 Employee Resource Group in the country in 2017 – above private sector companies like NBC Universal and Disney.” This honor also graced the Trump administration.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In nearly 70 nations, homosexuality is no parade. It’s illegal and triggers jail sentences and even executions for gays whom these antiquated, inhumane statutes ensnare.
As if on cue, Egyptian broadcaster Hala Samir furnished a fresh example of what the Trump Administration is combating. She said June 16, via Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Turkey-based Watan TV: “Ibn Abbas quoted the Prophet Muhammad as saying: ‘If you find men engaged in a homosexual act – kill the active one as well as the passive one.’ Don’t start asking: ‘Are you active or passive?’ Just kill both.”
“The companions of the Prophet Muhammad unanimously agreed that homosexuals should be killed, but they had disagreements about the method of killing,” Samir added, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute’s translation. “Some said that they should be burned alive...Others said that they should be thrown off a high place, and this should be followed by stoning.”
Grenell rebuffed this madness on Twitter: “Every US government agency and official must speak clearly that this is unacceptable.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rather than applaud, Twitter targeted Grenell. “Twitter launched an investigation of me for this tweet calling it unacceptable to kill gay people,” Grenell said. “But they allow the Muslim Brotherhood’s video calling for the death of gay people to continue.”
From a different religious perspective, Evangelical Christians and other social conservatives are central to President Trump’s political base. But they rarely do backflips over advances in gay rights. How has this core constituency greeted this operation?
“The concern is where this is really headed, or the end-game,” said Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council and Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Perkins told me: “Very few, if any, evangelicals support the harsh criminal penalties that some countries have placed on homosexual behavior. They also see administration officials pushing policies/views which were forced upon Americans by the Court as a form of cultural imperialism and do not support it. This concern applies not only to homosexuality but to abortion as well.”
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Grenell comes from the same faith tradition, yet he differs. “I grew up Evangelical Christian, and I know personally that support for decriminalizing homosexuality is high with Evangelicals and the larger religious community, because putting someone in jail or killing someone simply because they are gay is abhorrent to followers of Christ.”
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The Trump aministration began addressing this problem just over two years into office. Conversely, Obama and Biden had eight years to mount such a high-profile project. But they couldn’t care less. Instead, these far-Left Democrats apologized to fundamentalist-Islamic regimes that are among this sphere’s most nefarious actors.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Even worse, Obama and Biden unfroze $115 billion in Iranian assets and physically jetted $400 million in laundered Swiss francs to Tehran’s ayatollahs to spend as they wished.
Quid pro nihilo!
Obama and Biden’s partners in the calamitous Iran-nuclear deal were and are Earth’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. They also have a bad habit of hanging and decapitating men who love other men.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Last year, Iran’s regime publicly hanged a man based on anti-gay charge,” the Jerusalem Post reported Sunday. “Iran’s regime,” the Post added, “according to a 2008 British WikiLeaks dispatch, executed between 4,000-6,000 gays and lesbians.”
Rather than subsidize such butchery by air-delivering cash to homicidal homophobes — as Obama and Biden did — Trump officially has battled the barbarians behind such savagery.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“This is a human rights issue,” Grenell says. “I don’t see this as just a gay rights issue.”
Gay activists, who tend to lean 90 degrees left, should remember all of this before they, yet again, scream, “Homophobe!” at President Donald J. Trump.