Under Republican leadership, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom may soon itself qualify as a hate group.
It was announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump nominated Gary Bauer to be the latest member of the Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Bauer once led the Family Research Council, the anti-LGBT organization that advocates that homosexuals are harmful to society. The group has even been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The appointment of Bauer, an anti-LGBTQ activist for decades, is of a pattern. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his own pick on Tuesday; it is the current head of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins. Perkins is not just himself on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of anti-LGBTQ extremists, but earned the position for decades of bile against LGBTQ persons worldwide.
“Tony Perkins is the most recognizable anti-LGBTQ activist in America. He has espoused the most extreme views of LGBTQ people and other vulnerable communities including vocally supporting foreign laws that punish LGBTQ identity with death,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD. “The idea that Perkins would be making policy recommendations to an administration that is already anti-LGBTQ is dangerous and puts LGBTQ people directly in harm’s way.”
That Republican leadership appears to be coordinated in their attempts to stack the commission with hate group leaders is notable; both McConnell and Trump have spent considerable time peddling the notion that they are moderates within the party; appointing defenders of laws that result in the execution of LGBTQ people abroad is anything but.
That the United States will have the leaders of one of the most prominent anti-LGBTQ hate groups in America as their spokesman for "religious freedom" suggests that the United States version of that "freedom" is, for the next two years, going to focus on stripping "freedom" from LGBTQ citizens the world over. If we are very lucky, it will only discredit our nation. If we are not, McConnell, Trump and Pence will have succeeded in stoking further violence.