As we think about what the 2016 election will imply for LGBTQ equality throughout the USA, we can also't overlook what this election will imply for our international group.
He has courted extremists who foment hate each right here and export it overseas. His operating mate, Mike Pence, as a congressman in 2009, opposed language in federal laws to watch and fight human rights violations towards LGBTQ individuals overseas, accusing Democrats of trying to
"promote a gay rights agenda around the globe." Collectively, Donald Trump and Mike Pence appear to have little curiosity in -- and maybe little understanding of --
the dire plight faced by asylum seekers, together with those that search to flee the violence of ISIS or escape the anti-LGBTQ regime in Russia. And but, Trump says he is a pal to the LGBTQ group. However let us take a look at what he would truly do.
Just lately, Trump proposed an ideology check on new immigrants that may require these coming into america to point out they're, amongst different issues, tolerant of LGBTQ individuals. Placing apart the truth that he and Mike Pence would apparently
fail their own ideology test on a number of fronts, the very existence of such a vetting coverage would create one other impediment for refugees —together with LGBTQ individuals fleeing nations the place they will actually be put to demise merely due to who they're.
Against this, in the present day --
thanks to the work of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, and others -- LGBTQ individuals can obtain precedence resettlement as a result of they face a big menace of violence, torture, and even demise within the nations they're leaving. The coverage additionally prioritizes different weak teams resembling youngsters, widows and older refugees, in addition to focused communities like spiritual and ethnic minorities.
Whereas Trump was busy
cozying up to Vladimir Putin again in 2011, Clinton was declaring earlier than the worldwide group that
"gay rights are human rights." She was
creating the Global Equality Fund, which helps human rights defenders working to guard LGBTQ individuals in additional than 80 nations.
She was additionally serving to make sure the United Nations Human Rights Council handed its
very first resolution on sexual orientation and gender id in 2011. In Clinton, the LGBTQ group has a pacesetter who was not solely prepared to make historic commitments by way of our overseas coverage, however has taken motion.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence pose a transparent menace to equality right here in the USA, notably in relation to marriage equality, primary civil rights protections and the make-up of our Supreme Courtroom. However let's additionally think about what's on the road for the homosexual teen dwelling in Jamaica or the transgender lady dwelling in Honduras or the lads dwelling in day by day worry of being uncovered, focused and murdered by ISIS.
For them, our overseas coverage can imply life or demise.
In a Trump-Pence administration, does anybody assume human rights for all will stay a pillar of our overseas coverage? Or that our embassies overseas will present the identical beacon of hope to native LGBTQ communities? Or that whomever Trump selects as his secretary of state or UN ambassador will go earlier than the worldwide group to struggle towards discrimination and violence based mostly on sexual orientation and gender id?
Would Donald Trump rise up towards hateful laws in nations like Russia and Uganda when he is
endorsed the ability of US states to legalize discrimination? The solutions to all of these questions are: clearly not.
This election is about many essential problems with nice significance right here at house. However we will not overlook that we additionally maintain lives in our arms across the globe. Who we elect as our subsequent president will both destroy the progress we have made or proceed constructing towards a world the place all LGBTQ individuals are protected from violence, discrimination and worry.
Comments