In his daily “Washington Update” yesterday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins lamented that Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have tried to “export the LGBTQ agenda globally” and “systematically filled the ranks of [the State Department] with LGBTQ and abortion activists,” and urged President-elect Donald Trump to make sure that the next secretary of state “is willing to resist and remove this embedded agenda” by ferreting out its proponents.
“The incoming administration needs to make clear that these liberal policies will be reversed and the ‘activists’ within the State Department promoting them will be ferreted out and will be replaced by conservatives who will ensure the State Department focuses on true international human rights like religious liberty which is under unprecedented assault,” he wrote.
Perkins, who has criticized Trump’s secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson in part because he supported lifting the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay members, lamented that Tillerson may not be able to stand up to LGBT activists in the State Department.
Implying that the State Department’s commitment to protecting LGBT rights has hampered its work to defend religious liberty, Perkins wrote that he hopes the department’s new leadership will focus “on true international human rights like religious liberty which is under unprecedented assault.”
Perhaps Perkins should urge Trump to start by condemning his friend and Religious Right icon Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, for outlawing evangelism and backing militias that attack Protestants in Ukraine.
What does the State Department have to do with abortion and sexual behavior-based policies? Unfortunately, a whole lot. Over the last eight years, the State Department under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry has elevated the promotion of the Left’s view of human sexuality and abortion “rights” to the detriment of fundamental human rights like religious freedom.
Clinton made her intentions known early in her tenure that the administration would not only promote special rights based upon sexual behavior within the State Department but would use the State Department to export the LGBTQ agenda globally. These behavior based rights have consistently been a major emphasis of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.
The Obama administration has not only sent openly gay ambassadors into countries that are culturally opposed to homosexuality, they’ve used foreign aid to force nations opposed to homosexuality to change their laws to provide special protections for such behavior. And even flown the rainbow flag at U.S. embassies around the world! Equally, the Obama State Department under Hillary Clinton also promoted abortion, declaring reproductive healthcare a basic human right.
Foreign officials have complained about the strong arming by the State Department to forcing them to accept its liberal view on social issues. I’ve personally heard the concerns from foreign ambassadors and frequently hear from Members of Congress who have received complaints for foreign officials over how the administration has linked foreign aid to the adoption of the State Department’s LGBTQ and pro-abortion agendas.
To carry out this extreme agenda, the Obama administration has systematically filled the ranks of State with LGBTQ and abortion activists. Unless the next secretary of state is willing to resist and remove this embedded agenda, the promotion and protection of true human rights, like religious liberty, will continue to languish.
It’s for this reason that I have raised concerns about the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. I certainly don’t see Tillerson cut from the same cloth as Clinton or Kerry, but he doesn’t have to be for these anti-life, liberal social policies to continue. He must have the courage to stop the promotion of this anti-family, anti-life agenda, which is very much a question mark given that he capitulated to activists pushing to liberalize the Boy Scouts’ policy on homosexuality when he was at the helm of the organization.
The incoming administration needs to make clear that these liberal policies will be reversed and the “activists” within the State Department promoting them will be ferreted out and will be replaced by conservatives who will ensure the State Department focuses on true international human rights like religious liberty which is under unprecedented assault.
