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| Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council |
Sometimes, some folks need to keep their mouths shut.
Recently, the Trump Administration announced a goal of attempting to decriminalize homosexuality in countries where LGBTQs face persecution. Many in the LGBTQ community looked at this announcement with extreme trepidation because of how the administration has undermined our equality here in America.
And with Trump's showing that he was basically clueless about this policy on Wednesday, it turns out that we were right to be skeptical.
But what really takes the cake is how hate group - and Trump ally - the Family Research Council attempts to show support for Trump's policy. I should remind folks that the reason why FRC is considered a hate group is how it has continuously smeared the LGBTQ community via junk science and horror stories of us doing awful things, particularly "recruiting" children.
And it has also gone on record supporting other countries criminalizing homosexuality, i.e. the Uganda "Kill the Gays" bill. So it's interesting to read the following from FRC president Tony Perkins:
On February 1, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, wrote in an opinion piece in the German newspaper Bild that “government officials must . . . demand that U.N. members decriminalize homosexuality.” The piece got little attention until this week, when an “exclusive report” from NBC News said, “The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality.” There’s just one problem – besides the ambassador, it doesn’t seem that President Trump – or anyone else in the administration – authorized this “campaign.”.
Our own criminal laws against homosexual conduct were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 in the case of Lawrence v. Texas. Despite what some on the Left claim, we are not advocating for their return. But that does not mean we should engage in “cultural imperialism” by imposing policies that were imposed upon us by our Court on other countries with different cultures, traditions, and values..
For the last eight years, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bludgeoned foreign capitals with “diplomacy” designed to advance an LGBT agenda around the world and in the United Nations—doing damage to our relations with many countries as a result. The Trump administration should be ending such efforts, not making them a priority..
Now the tide has turned. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo articulated the proper way to think about all this at his confirmation hearing last year. When asked by Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) whether he thinks “LGBTQ rights are human rights,” Pompeo responded: “I deeply believe LGBTQ persons have every right that every other person has.”.
As our own Travis Weber points out, some may try to argue that protecting LGBT rights is a way of protecting human rights. Yet this misleadingly implies “that same-sex-attracted and transgendered persons do not currently enjoy human rights protections…” As Travis observes, “The [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] and [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] protect every individual from arbitrary arrest, torture, and extrajudicial killing by the State, because all humans have human dignity, regardless of their sexual attraction or gender preference.”.
Family Research Council vigorously opposes acts of violence against anyone because of their sexuality. According to NBC, there are eight countries which permit the death penalty for homosexuality—most of them also known as abusers of religious freedom and other rights, and supporters of terrorism. An end to those laws, and other physical punishments such as flogging, is a legitimate goal..
Let’s find common ground in calling for an end to all forms of physical violence against homosexuals -- but refrain from imposing the values of the sexual revolution on the rest of the world..
This is long-winded crap which shouldn't have been written. It only demonstrates the ignorant audacity of FRC to even think that it could get away with such a fractured piece of bipolar garbage.
For the record, what FRC attempts to frame as Obama advancing a so-called LGBTQ agenda included the following:
Combat the criminalization of LGBT status or conduct abroad.
Protect vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers.
Leverage foreign assistance to protect human rights and advance nondiscrimination.
Ensure swift and meaningful U.S. responses to human rights abuses of LGBT persons abroad.
Engage International Organizations in the fight against LGBT discrimination.
And I hardly think that Clinton plainly stating that "gay rights are human rights" was bludgeoning anyone. She was stating a fact:
Today, I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today. In many ways, they are an invisible minority. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed. Many are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join in the abuse. They are denied opportunities to work and learn, driven from their homes and countries, and forced to suppress or deny who they are to protect themselves from harm.
FRC opposed Obama and Clinton back then So why is the group changing its tune? Simply because the person pushing a policy of decriminalization is Trump and the group is tiptoeing, afraid to do anything to anger him and thus lose its access to White House policy. But even with that, FRC can't keep itself from adding weasel wording.
There is no middle ground here. Stop with the nonsense about a "sexual revolution." Stop with attempting to "thread the needle." Either you believe members of the LGBTQ community should be able to live without fear of being murdered, brutalized or imprisoned. Or you don't.
But I have a little advice. If FRC wants people to refrain from violently attacking the LGBTQ community, then the group should
Stop falsely connecting homosexuality with pedophilia.
Stop spinning the lie that gays want to "persecute" Christians.
Stop omitting same-sex families when talking about families in general.
Stop implying gays want to treat Christians like the Nazis did the Jews
Stop relying on anecdotes, lies, cherry-picked, and junk science to lie about our relationships and us as a people,
Stop deliberately dehumanizing, diminishing, undermining, and trashing our worth in all of your deeds and actions.
In other words, if the Family Research Council is truly concerned with violence against the LGBTQ community, then it needs to stop giving people incentive and motivation to commit that violence.
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