Obama Adopts Policy of Support for Gays and Lesbians Worldwide

U.S. President Barack Obama has called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals, going so far as to threaten to cut off assistance to countries that do not respect the rights of gays and lesbians.

“I am directing all agencies engaged abroad to ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons,” declared the American president in an internal notice.

“I am deeply concerned by the violence and discrimination targeting LGBT persons around the world,” he said. Washington has always criticized continents like Africa and countries such as Russia, where the situation of homosexuals is delicate and outrageous.

These weren’t just empty words — to ensure his intentions are carried out, Obama has adopted a policy that clearly stipulates that, going forward, all the agencies of the U.S. administration should guarantee that diplomatic assistance and foreign aid promote and protect the rights of homosexuals.

Hillary Clinton

Coinciding with the words of Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed a few hours later in Geneva the need to make the fight against the discrimination of homosexuals one of the defining priorities of the defense of human rights in the world.

“Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” Clinton said in a speech at the Palais des Nations, headquarters of the UN in Geneva, to commemorate International Human Rights Day.

The chief of U.S. diplomacy dedicated her over half-hour speech to the denouncement of discrimination that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community continues to suffer in many countries around the world, where it is a crime to be homosexual.