Back when Ronald Reagan was president, conservatives relished skewering liberals who, in approaching international affairs, "always blame America first." A generation later, with Barack Obama in the White House, they are proving they can indict the U.S.A. with the best of them.
Earlier this month, the administration announced a new effort to "end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons" around the world.
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It just means our diplomats will occasionally raise the issue, deliver a lecture once in a while and note such abuses in the State Department's annual report on human rights in the world. Not a big deal, really.
Except, that is, to religious conservatives who regard any charitable words about gays as the death knell of Western civilization.
Rick Perry said the decision proved Obama is "out of touch with America's values." Rick Santorum said Obama was promoting "gay lifestyles." The conservative Liberty Counsel Action said Obama was exporting our "immorality to other nations that are trying to adhere to traditional principles relative to human sexuality."
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It may be hard to believe, but some 76 countries outlaw gay sexual relations. At least five -- Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen -- make it punishable by death. In September, an Iranian human rights group reported that three men had been hanged for homosexual sodomy.
In many places, abuse is the norm. Gays across Africa "have been denied access to health care, detained, tortured and even killed," reports The Washington Post. The Gambian president promised to "cut off the head" of any homosexual. These nations, we are told, are just trying to uphold traditional morality.
It's one thing to say, as most Republicans do, that gays and lesbians should not be entitled to marry or enjoy protection against private discrimination. It's another to say they deserve to be harassed, imprisoned or executed for being gay.
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So what's the problem if the State Department encourages foreign governments to stop punishing gays? You might say, as Santorum does, that we should "give out humanitarian aid based on humanitarian need, not based on whether people are promoting their particular agenda." But has he ever objected to the U.S. habit of criticizing countries that persecute Christians?
