Hate group Family Research Council wants Special LGBT Envoy gone from State Department

FRC wants Randy Berry purged.

In its Washington Update yesterday, SPLC-designated hate group the Family Research Council made it more than clear that with Trump's incoming administration, it would like to see one state department official purged.

Why? Because he was appointed by Obama as Special LGBT Envoy.

Randy Berry has served less than two years at his job, but to hear the Family Research Council tell the story, he has been causing chaos:

The new administration is sending Obama's diplomats packing -- but some are not going too far. In the case of LGBT Envoy Randy Berry, the move may be a short one. Inside the State Department, rumors are swirling that Secretary John Kerry's pro-gay protégé just took a different job in the department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor division -- giving the radical agenda a permanent home in an agency that some claim has nothing to do with social issues.

"I plan to come to work the day after the inauguration," Berry told the Blade a year ago. "I serve the U.S. government. I serve the American people." Unfortunately for voters anxious to return to real diplomacy, he may be close to making good on that promise. Berry, who spent more than a year and a half on a worldwide "tolerance" tour, has been very clear about his intentions from Day One. Special rights for people who identify as gay or transgender "creates a more durable, healthier nation," he's insisted. He took that message on the road through most of 2015 and 2016, leaning on other countries in an effort to force them to open their doors to extreme policies at the expense -- not just of the host nation's values, but of international religious liberty.

If the reports are accurate, returning the State Department to true, statutorily-defined foreign policy will be that much harder for the Trump team, which already has its work cut out for it in reversing the damage done by eight years of the department's misguided priorities. And just because Berry switches posts doesn't mean he'll switch tactics. After all, this is a man who argued that the best way to effect change is to target other countries' constitutions -- meddling in a process where America has no business. "From [the beginning], one of my primary goals was... to engage with our detractors and to shine a spotlight on this key set of issues." Obviously, President Obama is doing his best to protect that spotlight by shuffling Berry away from a job that could be eliminated under a conservative administration. This way, Berry could still influence policy, but from a position that doesn't require executive approval.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of how the LGBT agenda has distracted and undermined the agency's statutorily-defined goal of promoting religious liberty. While the Obama administration has never minded interfering in other country's moral traditions, it refuses to intervene when lives of Christians are at stake -- or the basic human rights to life and religious freedom. Until the department is headed up by a strong leader who is determined to face the hostile forces within, Obama's liberal ideology that has created global instability will remain. Let's hope and pray that the Trump team recognizes the threat and moves forward with a solid assistant secretary over the Bureau who won't tolerate Berry bullying other countries on the Left's sexual extremism.

Don't let FRC's false spin fool you. It's less about Berry and more about the organization's attempt to render the lgbt community invisible. Berry was appointed in keeping with the Obama Administration's belief that "lgbt rights are human rights." He focused on stopping persecution of lgbts around that world. Sometimes this persecution entails being placed in prison simply for being an lgbt and other times, it takes deadlier forms.

From the Human Rights Campaign, a lgbt organization:

 As Special Envoy, Berry is tasked with leading the State Department's efforts to protect the human rights of LGBTI people around the world and he has brought a tremendous amount of energy to the position. He has traveled to over 40 countries during the past year and has held hundreds of meetings with international organizations, national government leaders, local governments, law enforcement, civil society, media, business and the general public. His message is simple: LGBT people deserve the same dignity and respect that all people do. While every country may have their own particular views on LGBT issues, there is simply no excuse for violence or persecution of people based on who they are or whom they love.

Instead of false statements, the Family Research Council should say why it has a problem with reducing the persecution of lgbts around the world. Why does FRC have a problem with speaking against "corrective rape," a practice in which lgbts are raped under the false assumption that it will turn them heterosexual. It happens in places as diverse as South Africa and India.

Why does FRC have a problem with speaking out against putting people in jail for simply being an lgbt, which happens in Iran, Nigeria, Yemen, and other foreign countries.

And finally, what's wrong with treating lgbts with dignity and respect in general? What's so radical about that?