A new US envoy takes LGBT activism to the global stage

The envoy for sodomy
by Robert R. Reilly


On Monday, February 23, Secretary of State John Kerry proclaimed, “I could not be more proud to announce Randy Berry as the first-ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons.” Come again? I have served in the US State Department and do not recall such a position being listed in its table of organization. Where did the creation of this position come from?

It turns out that Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., had introduced legislation in the last Congress to create such a position, but the bill died. The bill was reintroduced in the new Congress, with zero chances of passage. As we know, the Obama administration is not deterred by Congress’ failure to act or outright opposition, so it is simply created the position by executive fiat. This has the added advantage of not requiring Congressional confirmation of the openly-gay Mr. Berry in the new position. It simply becomes an executive branch appointment.

But what exactly is Mr. Berry supposed to do “for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons” in foreign countries? Well, it turns out, according to Secretary Kerry that, “Too often, in too many countries, LGBT persons are threatened, jailed, and prosecuted because of who they are or who they love.”

Arrested because of “who they are or who they love”? I put aside Mr. Kerry’s ungrammatical expression, which should have read, “whom they love,” – not “who they love,” which has two subjects without an object. If you can be arrested for who you are, you obviously do not live in a country with the rule of law, based upon the principle of equality. Rather, such discrimination would be based upon some race theory of history, as was the case in Nazism, or a class theory of history, as was the case with Communism. Those were regimes where you could be arrested if you were not of the Aryan race, or if you did not belong to the proletariat class. Americans can be proud that its diplomats did everything they could against such injustice.

Being arrested for whom you love seems a bit trickier because it would seem unavoidably to deal with how the love is expressed and in what relationship.

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