The Secretary of State gave a long, powerful speech supporting the rights of gay people around the world.
From the LA TImes:
In a speech to mark Human Rights Day, which is celebrated Saturday, Clinton declared that protecting the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is "now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time" and compared it to the battles for women's rights, racial equality and religious freedom.(Video and transcript here). Along with this, the Obama Administration has released a memo detailing its efforts.
Now, as you know I'm an advocate for marriage equality.
But many of our issues here in the US are "luxury" issues. Gay people in many parts of the world don't have the luxury of marriage, or serving in the military. They are lacking even fundamental rights like life and liberty. Gay people in many places, particularly but not exclusively Africa, are at risk of violence, imprisonment, and even death simply for being who they are.
There are people here who advocate the same thing. They pop up in the comment threads of articles on line, they write hateful things on the pages of NOM's facebook, they buy NOM"s lies. But they aren't the majority. So they export their hate.
And now, the US is saying with the weight of officialdom, "Being gay is NOT a crime." Well done.
Update: Rick Perry, presidential wanna-be, complains: "Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money."
Andrew Sullivan fires back: "Not getting murdered is NOT a special right."
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