“All we’ve seen is two meetings without a lot of follow-up in Berlin, and one kind of similar meeting in Kiev,” said Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, which advocates for American foreign policy to prop up LGBTQ rights across the globe. But it’s unclear whether any of that is actually happening. In addition to DRL, any coordinated push toward decriminalization would involve designated point people elsewhere within the State Department, officials at other federal agencies, and input from National Security Council staff at the White House. “No one in DRL has any idea what’s going on…There is no process.” Last year, the White House tried to gut the bureau’s budget by nearly 25 percent-Congress approved a smaller cut closer to 20 percent-and, like the rest of the State Department, it’s still recovering from the hiring freeze instituted by Trump’s first secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. “There is no process.”Įven if DRL had attempted to play a prominent role in the effort, it would have had fewer resources and heft to contribute. “ No one in DRL has any idea what’s going on,” a former State Department official said.
But two sources close to that office told Mother Jones that it has been frequently left out of the loop in the months since the campaign was launched. In February, US officials told NBC that Grenell’s initiative would likely “include working with global organizations like the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as other countries whose laws already allow for gay rights.” The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) was expected to play an organizing role, given its focus on international LGBTQ rights during the Obama administration. “ He thinks that he’s really good for LGBT rights and seems disconnected from the reality that his administration has consistently attacked LGBT people domestically, and hasn’t offered anything more than rhetoric for LGBT people abroad.” “President Trump really fancies himself an LGBT ally,” says Ryan Thoreson, a Yale Law School lecturer and researcher with Human Rights Watch. (The group had declined to endorse him in 2016.) Then in September, it appeared in his UN speech. To commemorate the start of Pride Month, Trump tweeted about the “global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.” Two months later, the Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-LGBT group, cited it approvingly in their endorsement of Trump’s reelection campaign. At some point, he did get the message and seemed to recognize the value of publicizing it. When NBC first broke news of its launch, Trump appeared not to know it existed.
Problems with the initiative emerged early on. Thank you, for leading an effort to decriminalize lgbt people. Grenell’s events, he says, have “not translated into any meaningful, coordinated, strategic effort.”ħ1 countries criminalize homosexuality. “There’s nothing,” says David Pressman, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm who worked on international LGBTQ policy under Obama. While Grenell, who is gay, has convened a handful of panel discussions with activists in Europe, the Trump team appears to have done far less on the issue than the previous administration. There’s just one problem: Activists and other sources deeply involved in the decriminalization movement tell Mother Jones that for all the tweets and publicity, the administration has done virtually nothing that is likely to produce tangible results. Both Trump and his eldest son, Don Jr., have tweeted about it enthusiastically. It has become a favorite talking point of younger Trump supporters as they seek to defend a president who has rolled back transgender rights and nominated anti-LGBT judges. The initiative, which was rolled out to great fanfare earlier this year, is being run by US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell. “For this reason, my administration is working with other nations to stop criminalizing of homosexuality, and we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people who live in countries that punish, jail, or execute individuals based upon sexual orientation.” The Trump team appears to have done far less on the issue than the previous administration. “As we defend American values, we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity,” Trump said. When President Donald Trump spoke to the United Nations last month, he boasted about his administration’s efforts to push for the decriminalization of homosexuality in the dozens of countries where it remains illegal.
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