Thursday, February 21, 2019

TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN TO DECRIMINALIZE HOMOSEXUALITY~FOREIGN POLICY OVERREACH

Ambassador Richard Grenell
FOREIGN POLICY OVERREACH: TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN 
TO DECRIMINALIZE HOMOSEXUALITY
BY RAVEN CLABOUGH
President Trump has launched a global campaign to end criminalization of homosexuality in countries where homosexual activity is illegal, NBC News reports. But while the effort may be considered a noble one, there is little hope that it will win the administration any support from the LGBTQ community. Instead, the campaign merely exemplifies the overreach of America’s foreign policy and has the potential to do untold damage to alliances.
The campaign is being led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, an openly gay official in the Trump administration. As part of the effort, the U.S. embassy is bringing in LGBT activists from Europe for a dinner at which guests will discuss strategies to advocate for decriminalization in places such as the Middle East and Africa. Officials contend that the campaign will likely require input from global organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, as well as from individual countries where homosexual activity is not illegal. The focus will remain on decriminalization and not on broader issues such as same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues.
“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” said a U.S. official involved in organizing the dinner.
The campaign is largely in response to the recent hanging of a young homosexual male in Iran.
“This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And it sadly won’t be the last time,” Grenell asserted. “Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death.”
He added that “politicians, the U.N., democratic governments, diplomats and good people everywhere should speak up — and loudly.”
Grenell and the Trump administration are hopeful that redirecting Europe’s attention to the human rights outrages in Iran will generate more support from Europe for U.S. opposition to Iran. But NBC observes that the administration may be playing a dangerous game, as focusing on LGBT rights in Iran could also expose other close U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia to criticism and potentially hurt alliances.
And despite Grenell’s efforts to protect homosexuals from abuse in other nations, members of the LGBTQ community seemingly have no interest in approving of anything the Trump administration does and are decrying the campaign as “racist.”
Staff writer Matthew Rodriguez at Out magazine is accusing the Trump administration of using an “old racist tactic.”
“While on its surface, the move looks like an atypically benevolent decision by the Trump administration, the details of the campaign belie a different story,” Rodriguez began.
“Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, Trump's campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda," Rodriguez continued.
"The truth is, this is part of an old colonialist handbook. In her essay, 'Can the Subaltern Speak?' postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak coined the term ‘White men saving brown women from brown men’ to describe the racist, paternalistic process by which colonizing powers would decry the way men in power treated oppressed groups, like women, to justify attacking them,” wrote Rodriguez. “Spivak was referencing the British colonial agenda in India. But Grennell’s attack might be a case of white men trying to save brown gay men from brown straight men, to the same end.”
Rodriguez ultimately contends that the administration’s campaign is ultimately an anti-Muslim one disguised as pro-LGBTQ:
Grennell’s sudden interest in Iran’s anti-gay laws is strikingly similar to Trump’s rhetoric after the 2016 Pulse massacre in Orlando, Florida. After the deadly shooting, Trump used the 49 deaths as a way to galvanize support for an anti-Muslim agenda rather than find a way to support LGBTQ+ people. In pushing for immigration restrictions and a Muslim ban, Trump argued, he was the true pro-LGBTQ+ candidate. Rather than honor those who died, Trump used the tragedy as a way to stoke fear among the American people, and Grennell is taking similar actions with Iran — trying to reach an economic goal by painting the administration’s opponent as anti-gay.
In other words, no matter where President Trump falls on any of the issues, those on the Left will always perceive his actions as inflammatory and offensive.
As mentioned above, the campaign has the potential to hurt U.S. relations with some of its other Middle Eastern allies and exacerbate already-strained relations with Iran. It also compels critics of the Trump administration to question a foreign policy that seems to have a double standard for different countries, The Daily Beast reports.
“If this commitment is real, we have a lot of questions about their intentions and commitments, and are eager to see what proof and action will follow,” said Human Rights Campaign senior international policy advocate Jeremy Kadden in a statement.
“Donald Trump and Mike Pence have turned a blind eye to a campaign of violence and murder targeting LGBTQ people in Chechnya that has stretched on for two years,” said Kadden. “They have turned away LGBTQ people fleeing violence and persecution and sent them back to countries that criminalize them, and have consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people and our families here at home from day one.”
Perhaps worst of all, it sets a precedent for intervention into the domestic affairs of sovereign countries by other nations.
So is it worth it?
___________________________________________________________

Trump admin announces global push to decriminalize sodomy

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/trump-admin-announces-global-push-decriminalize-sodomy/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
February 20, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The Trump administration revealed Tuesday that it will be spearheading a global effort to get countries to end their criminalization of homosexuality, according to a report by NBC News. While the move is likely to distress many of Trump’s Christian-base supporters, it has interestingly been met with a cold shoulder by U.S. pro-LGBT voices.
The effort is being led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, a homosexual conservative rumored to be in consideration as President Donald Trump’s next ambassador to the United Nations.
“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” a US official told NBC News of the effort, which begins this week with an American-hosted strategy meeting in Berlin of LGBT advocates from across Europe.
The report notes that the effort is “narrowly focused on criminalization” instead of pressuring countries to adopt policies such as same-sex “marriage,” and is motivated in part by Iran hanging a man last month for violating the Islamic nation’s ban on sodomy, a capital offense (the man was also accused of kidnapping two teenagers, though it’s unclear how both offenses factored into his sentence. Grenell believes the kidnapping charges are false).
“This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And it sadly won’t be the last time,” Grenell said. “Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death […] politicians, the U.N., democratic governments, diplomats and good people everywhere should speak up — and loudly.”
NBC notes that the administration may see emphasizing Iran’s treatment of homosexuals as a way to get more European nations to join its efforts to contain Iran, though there’s also concern the push could strain relations with Arab allies Trump also wants united against Iran.
“People can disagree philosophically about homosexuality, but no person should ever be subject to criminal penalties because they are gay,” Grenell has written. The ambassador later told NBC that religious and social conservatives support his efforts, with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – both of whom liberals have targeted for their Christian beliefs – “absolutely” on board.
Stefano Gennarini, Vice President of the Center of Legal Studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), lamented the move, saying that the administration “has not shown the slightest interest in spending even a fraction of the financial and political resources required for this LGBT effort on pro-life diplomatic efforts”:
Stefano Gennarini@prolifeadvocate
 · 
Pro-life groups need to raise hell over this. The Trump administration has not shown the slightest interest in spending even a fraction of the financial and political resources required for this LGBT effort on pro-life diplomatic efforts. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-launches-global-effort-end-criminalization-homosexuality-n973081 …

Trump administration launches global effort to end criminalization of homosexuality

The administration is responding in part to a reported hanging of a young gay man in Iran, Trump’s top geopolitical foe.
nbcnews.com
Stefano Gennarini@prolifeadvocate
Pro-life groups must stop accepting GOP platitudes about the Supreme Court and the Mexico City Policy and demand real pro-life international efforts instead.
2:38 PM – Feb 20, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
See Stefano Gennarini’s other Tweets
Despite this dramatic gesture in the name of “gay rights,” pro-LGBT media outlets are doubling down on the narrative that Donald Trump is still a full-spectrum bigot.
The Washington Blade published a report lamenting that the US-based groups OutRight Action International, Human Rights Campaign and Council for Global Equality weren’t invited to the planning meeting, with HRC’s Jeremy Kadden declaring that Trump and Pence “have consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people and our families here at home from day one.”
Them journalist Matt Baume called the push “hypocritical” coming “after two years spent working to oppress LGBTQ+ people in America,” while Out’s Mathew Rodriguez penned a reaction titled, “Trump’s Plan to Decriminalize Homosexuality Is an Old Racist Tactic” rooted in a “colonial sense of paternalism rather than any true altruism.”
“The truth is, this is part of an old colonialist handbook,” Rodriguez writes. “In her essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?” postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak coined the term ‘White men saving brown women from brown men’ to describe the racist, paternalistic process by which colonizing powers would decry the way men in power treated oppressed groups, like women, to justify attacking them.”
In this case, he argues, “Grennell’s [sic] attack might be a case of white men trying to save brown gay men from brown straight men, to the same end.” Rodriguez’s piece has beenwidely mocked in conservative media.
While Donald Trump has strongly supported the right to life and religious liberty, and pushed back against the LGBT lobby on issues such as transgender soldiers, a science-based definition of gender, gendered restrooms, and government recognition of “pride month,” some social conservatives have expressed disappointment that his personal approval of homosexuality negatively impacts other policy decisions.
The president has nominated a variety of pro-LGBT officials to government posts and judgeships, continued a number of Obama-era pro-LGBT policies, such as an executive order on “gender identity nondiscrimination,” publicly praised the liberal, pro-LGBT group Log Cabin Republicans, and declared that the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling forcing all fifty states to recognize same-sex “marriage” was “settled law.”
at