INTERNATIONAL
State Department Poised to Ditch Human Rights
Democrats, advocates warn of anti-LGBTQ shift in new Pompeo push
BY MATT TRACY
The State Department’s announcement
of a new panel tasked with reevaluating
the role of human rights
in American foreign policy and the
choice of that body’s leader are fueling concern
the Trump administration is further distancing
itself from LGBTQ and women’s issues internationally.
In announcing the panel on July 8, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo said, “International institutions
designed and built to protect human
rights have drifted from their original mission.”
He added, “Every once in a while, we need to
step back and refl ect seriously on where we are,
where we’ve been, and whether we’re headed in
the right direction, and that’s why I’m pleased
to announce today the formation of a Commission
on Unalienable Rights.”
Pompeo even questioned the basic meaning
of human rights, asking, “What does it mean
to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human
right?”
The secretary of state has injected religion
into his government work dating back to his
time in Congress and appears to be continuing
that trend with his appointment of the former
US ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon,
to lead the commission. Glendon has previously
described same-sex marriage as “tragic,”
a “radical social experiment,” and said it would
“impair” the rights of children.
Pompeo said those on the commission would
be tasked with advising him on how to best
shape the department’s approach to human
rights in accordance with the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which laid out
common fundamental human rights to be universally
protected.
Pompeo noted that the commission would
consist of a wide range of experts across the
ideological spectrum, from Democrats to Republicans,
philosophers, and activists. But
many of them are from the religious right, such
as Christopher Tollefsen, who is a professor of
philosophy at the University of South Carolina
and has argued that human life begins at conception
and that gender transition is “unreasonable.”
The State Department did not immediately
respond to multiple questions about Pompeo’s
statement by press time, including how institutions
have “drifted from their mission” to protect
human rights and whether or not the commission
will focus on certain international regions.
There have been hints, however, about the
brains behind the commission in the fi rst place.
Princeton Professor Robert P. George, who cofounded
MICHAEL GROSS/ US STATE DEPARTMENT
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looks on, longtime homophobe
Mary Ann Glendon (right) speaks on July 8 about her new role leading
a State Department commission focused on evaluating the role
of human rights in American foreign policy.
the notoriously anti-LGBTQ National
Organization for Marriage, played a “prominent
role” in creating the commission, a source told
ABC News.
Another sign of George’s role in the commission
emerged when the State Department used
a phrase he’s known to use — “natural law”
— when it issued a public notice in the Federal
Register in late May. The department said
the commission would provide “fresh thinking
about human rights discourse where such discourse
has departed from our nation’s founding
principles of natural law and natural rights.”
The rosy picture painted by Pompeo was
not well received by the Democratic-controlled
House of Representatives. The House approved
an appropriations bill last month that blocks
funding for the commission and out gay Congressmember
David Cicilline of Rhode Island,
who chairs the Democratic Policy and Communications
Committee, issued warning signs
about the State Department’s intentions.
“After decades of progress, this administration
is trying to return our human rights policies
to the dark ages,” Cicilline said in a written
statement after Pompeo delivered his remarks.
“Secretary Pompeo’s announcement is just a
thinly-veiled attempt to re-write longstanding
human rights principles to promote discrimination
against the LGBTI community and women
around the world.
Cicilline called on the Senate to also block
funding for the commission. He further criticized
Pompeo for pushing “his own political
agenda” by overlooking the dozens of human
rights experts in the State Department in favor
of what he described as a “sham commission.”
“It’s ironic that an administration that has
made it a practice to cozy up to the worst dictators
and rights abusers thinks it can fool the
American people into believing this is an effort
to protect human rights,” he said.
Out gay Representative Sean Patrick Maloney
of New York especially aimed his criticism
at Glendon’s appointment.
“Picking an avowed homophobe to run a
commission on human rights is absurd and
insulting — but not surprising,” he said in a
written statement to Gay City News on July 10.
“This administration never misses an opportunity
to target LGBTQ people.”
Multiple advocacy groups focused on international
human rights issues blasted the commission
and tore into Pompeo’s intentions to uproot
the nation’s approach to human rights.
OutRight Action International, a US-based
organization that fi ghts for human rights for
LGBTQ and intersex people around the world,
described the new commission as “worrying.”
“The intent of Commission is to ground human
rights in so-called ‘natural law,’ which typically
means a social order based on religious
texts, dominated by white men,” OutRight’s
executive director, Jessica Stern, told Gay City
News in a written statement on July 10. “This
not only radically changes the defi nition of human
rights and challenges international human
rights standards established by the United
Nations, it aims to turn back the clock by
hundreds of years to a society characterized by
male-domination, subservience of women, race
and class segregation, and complete erasure of
LGBTIQ people.”
Other groups shared similar concerns and
stressed that such changes by the State Department
could destabilize longstanding international
efforts to improve human rights.
“This approach only encourages other countries
to adopt a disregard for basic human
rights standards and risks weakening international,
as well as regional frameworks, placing
the rights of millions of people around the world
in jeopardy,” said Joanne Lin, who serves as the
national director of advocacy and government
affairs at Amnesty International USA.
Pompeo’s years-long opposition to LGBTQ
rights has been clear since his time as a congressmember
from Kansas. In 2010, he defended
banning gay and lesbian folks from the military,
saying, “We cannot use the military to promote
social ideas that do not refl ect the values of our
nation.” He also described the Supreme Court’s
2015 marriage equality ruling as a “shocking
abuse of power.” One year before that he said, “If
you’re asking for what is ideal, I think it’s being
raised by a man and a woman.”
Most recently, Pompeo’s State Department
has shrugged off marriage and immigration
laws by fi ghting the citizenship status of children
of multiple bi-national families headed by
same-sex couples, an issue that has been embroiled
in legal battles.
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