In a doomed attempt at leftist social engineering, the US State Department has been going out of its way to recruit homosexuals to work as foreign service personnel in Muslim countries, despite the obvious dangers to those personnel.
WND: Did Obama send a ‘gay’ ambassador to Libya?
by Jerome R. CorsiEmail | Archive
Did President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton send a “gay” ambassador to Muslim-majority Libya, where homosexual behavior is a crime punishable by imprisonment?Believing the “Arab Spring” countries would be encouraged to embrace democracy through left-leaning diplomats dedicated to understanding and dialoguing with Muslim communities, did a State Department under Secretary Clinton that refused to establish rules of engagement providing embassy personnel Marine Corp protection take the additional risk of placing a gay ambassador in Muslim countries?
The question comes amid claims in the diplomatic community that J. Christopher Stevens — the U.S. ambassador to Libya brutally murdered on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — was homosexual.
The question is worth serious exploration, even if Stevens’ sexuality cannot be determined with certainty, because U.S. government Foreign Service agencies are actively recruiting from the homosexual community for diplomatic assignments overseas, including in the Middle East.
The recruitment derives from a larger policy decision Obama and Clinton have made to confront discrimination against homosexuals globally, even in Muslim countries.
[...]LGBT recruiting
Posted on the State Department website is a career statement answering the questions: “Does the Department of State Consider Lesbians and Gays for Employment? What if I have a same-sex live-in partner?”
In answering the question, the State Department website continues:
It is the policy of the Department of State to provide equal opportunity and fair treatment in employment to all persons without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, age, handicap, political affiliation, marital status, or sexual orientation. There are many new provisions for declared same-sex domestic partners of eligible employees serving overseas: diplomatic passports (for US citizens), inclusion on employee travel orders to and from posts abroad, shipment of household effects, inclusion in family size calculations for the purpose of making household allocations, family member preference for employment at posts abroad, use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, emergency travel for partners to visit gravely ill or injured employees and relatives, inclusion as family members for emergency evacuation from posts abroad, subsistence payments related to emergency evacuation from posts abroad, inclusion in calculation of overseas allowances (e.g., payment for quarters, cost of living, and other allowances, representation expenses, and training at the Foreign Service Institute.
A note at the bottom of the listing, which reads almost as an afterthought, says the federal Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA, defines marriage as a heterosexual union and “spouse” as “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife” – definitions the note says “apply for purposes of all federal laws.”
Still, the State Department webpage links to remarks Clinton made on “Benefits for Same-Sex Domestic Partners of Foreign Service Employees.” She announced June 18, 2009, that following a memorandum issued by President Obama, the State Department was “extending the full range of legally available benefits and allowances to same-sex domestic partners of members of the Foreign Service sent to serve abroad.”
On Dec. 6, 2011, Obama issued a new LGBT policy via another presidential memorandum directing the secretary of state to fight LGBT discrimination on a global basis.
On the same day, Clinton, in a speech at the Palais de Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in recognition of Internal Human Rights Day, pledged $3 million to the creation of a Global Equality Fund to start an organization dedicated to advocating “for human rights for the LGBT community in hostile places.”
Gay and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, known as GLIFFA, is the officially recognized organization representing the LGBT community employed by a variety of U.S. government agencies with foreign diplomacy missions, including the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID.
In making these changes, the Obama administration has tasked Clinton with reversing decades of policy directives in the U.S. diplomatic service that considered homosexuality an offense that could lead to termination of employment. The policy was based on the possibility that known homosexuals in the diplomatic ranks would be vulnerable to blackmail.
Several Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, consider LGBT lifestyles to be criminal, subject to severe punishment, including in some instances the death penalty.
A “gay pride” celebration at a U.S. Embassy party in Islamabad, Pakistan, June 26, 2011, provoked an angry reaction from Muslim groups who reportedly condemned the event as an act of “cultural terrorism” aimed at the nation’s Islamic values.
A posting still available on the U.S. Embassy website in Islamabad notes 75 people, including mission officers, U.S. military representatives, foreign diplomats and leaders of Pakistani LGBT groups, attended “gay pride” event hosted June 26, 2011, by Chargé d’Affaires Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland.
“This gathering demonstrated continued U.S. Embassy support for human rights, including LGBT rights, in Pakistan at a time when those rights are increasingly under attack from extremist elements throughout Pakistani society,” the U.S. Embassy website noted.
“Addressing the Pakistani LGBT activists, the Chargé, while acknowledging that the struggle for LGBT rights in Pakistan is beginning, said ‘I want to be clear: the U.S. Embassy is here to support you and stand by your side every step of the way.’
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Much more here.
