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Trump administration launches global effort to end criminalization of
homosexuality

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EXCLUSIVE
National Security
National Security


TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LAUNCHES GLOBAL EFFORT TO END CRIMINALIZATION OF
HOMOSEXUALITY

The administration is responding in part to a reported hanging of a young gay
man in Iran, Trump’s top geopolitical foe.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell at a reception in Berlin on Jan. 14,
2019.Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa via AP file
Link copied
Feb. 19, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC
By Josh Lederman

BERLIN — The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the
criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal
to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran
over its human rights record.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay
person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off
Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from
across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in
places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East,
Africa and the Caribbean.




“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have
laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” said a U.S. official involved in
organizing the event.


TRUMP ADMINISTRATION STARTS CAMPAIGN TO END GLOBAL CRIMINALIZATION OF
HOMOSEXUALITY

Feb. 19, 201903:28


Although the decriminalization strategy is still being hashed out, officials say
it’s likely to 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.
Other U.S. embassies and diplomatic posts throughout Europe, including the U.S.
Mission to the E.U., are involved, as is the State Department’s Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Narrowly focused on criminalization, rather than broader LGBT issues like
same-sex marriage, the campaign was conceived partly in response to the recent
reported execution by hanging of a young gay man in Iran, the Trump
administration’s top geopolitical foe.

Grenell, as Trump’s envoy to Germany, has been an outspoken Iran critic and has
aggressively pressed European nations to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal and
re-impose sanctions. But while the Trump administration has had some success in
pressuring Iran through stepped-up U.S. penalties, efforts to bring the
Europeans along have thus far largely fallen flat.



Reframing the conversation on Iran around a human rights issue that enjoys broad
support in Europe could help the United States and Europe reach a point of
agreement on Iran. Grenell called the hanging “a wake-up call for anyone who
supports basic human rights,” in Bild, a leading German newspaper, this month.

“This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with
the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And
it sadly won’t be the last time,” Grenell wrote. “Barbaric public executions are
all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are
criminalized and punishable by flogging and death.”

He added that “politicians, the U.N., democratic governments, diplomats and good
people everywhere should speak up — and loudly.”

Yet by using gay rights as a cudgel against Iran, the Trump administration risks
exposing close U.S. allies who are also vulnerable on the issue and creating a
new tension point with the one region where Trump has managed to strengthen U.S.
ties: the Arab world.



In Saudi Arabia, whose monarchy Trump has staunchly defended in the face of
human rights allegations, homosexuality can be punishable by death, according to
a 2017 worldwide report from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and
Intersex Association (ILGA). The report identified 72 nations that still
criminalize homosexuality, including eight where it’s punishable by death.



That list includes the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Afghanistan — all U.S.
allies — although those countries aren’t known to have implemented the death
penalty for same-sex acts. In Egypt, whose leader Trump has effusively praised,
homosexual relations aren’t technically illegal but other morality laws are used
aggressively to target LGBT people.

New U.S. pressure on those countries to change their laws comes as the Trump
administration is working to use nascent ties between Arab nations and Israel to
form a powerful axis against Iran, a strategy that dovetails with the
administration’s planned rollout of an ambitious plan for Israeli-Palestinian
peace.



In the Gulf state of Oman, for example, the Trump administration has touted a
recent, historic visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a sign
that old taboos are eroding. But any campaign to decriminalize homosexuality
would ostensibly also have to call out Oman, where prison sentences can be
handed out for being gay.



The push to end laws that outlaw homosexuality abroad also stands in contrast to
the Trump administration’s mixed record on gay rights at home.

As a candidate, Trump was ambiguous about his position on many gay rights
issues, but notably became the first Republican nominee to mention LGBT rights
in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. His convention
also featured another first: PayPal founder Peter Thiel became the first gay
person to acknowledge his sexuality in a speech to the GOP convention, declaring
he was “proud to be gay.”

Trump, after being elected, also said he was “fine” with same-sex marriage. But
since he took office, his administration has scaled back some workplace
protections for gay people and has argued in court that a federal
anti-discrimination law doesn’t protect gay employees. He has also announced a
ban on transgender people serving openly in the U.S. military, which the Supreme
Court last month said could be implemented even as lower-court challenges play
out.

U.S. officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is supporting the work by
U.S. embassies and consulates to fight violence and discrimination against LGBT
people. In his Senate confirmation hearing, Pompeo asserted: “I deeply believe
that LGBTQ persons have every right that every other person in the world would
have.”



Grenell, known for his hawkish views on national security, is also currently
under consideration to be Trump’s ambassador to the U.N., three U.S. officials
tell NBC News, after Trump’s previous pick for the job, Heather Nauert, withdrew
from consideration over the weekend. Grenell once served as spokesman for the
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. when that role was inhabited by John Bolton, who is
now Trump’s national security adviser.

Planning for the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality started before the U.N.
job became open. It was a topic of conversation over the weekend at the Munich
Security Conference, where Grenell discussed it with a visiting congressional
delegation that included Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.;
and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.

Despite the dozens of countries that still outlaw homosexuality, LGBT rights
have proliferated in recent years in many parts of the world. Two dozen
countries now recognize same-sex marriage, according to the ILGA report, while
another 28 recognize domestic partnerships. The last U.S. laws outlawing
same-sex activity were invalidated by the Supreme Court in 2003 in Lawrence v.
Texas.

Grenell, in his editorial in Bild, pointed out that India, Belize, Angola, and
Trinidad and Tobago recently decriminalized same-sex conduct among consenting
adults. But he said “reasonable people” must keep speaking out about laws in
other places, including Iran and Chechnya, the Russian region where authorities
have cracked down violently on gay people in recent years.



“While a student at Evangel University, a Christian liberal arts college in
Missouri, I was taught by biblical scholars that all truth is God’s truth, no
matter where it is found. The truth for LGBT people is that we were born gay,”
Grenell wrote. “People can disagree philosophically about homosexuality, but no
person should ever be subject to criminal penalties because they are gay.”


Josh Lederman

Josh Lederman is an NBC News correspondent.



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