Leftist Magazine Now Attacking Trump for Defending Gays in Iran, Claims It's Racist
There are some on the left who have become so consumed by their hatred for President Donald Trump that even when he does something they have supported, they will abandon those goals to spite Trump and express their displeasure with him.
Case in point is the leftist reaction to a newly launched global initiative by the Trump administration to decriminalize homosexuality in the numerous nations that still outlaw the sexual orientation and punish those known or suspected of being gay.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell — the highest-ranked openly gay official in the Trump administration — would take the lead in the global initiative, NBC News reported. Grenell reportedly met with European LGBT activists for a private dinner to discuss the plans to push for the decriminalization of homosexuality in regions where it is still largely against the law, such as a number of nations in Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” an unnamed U.S. official involved in the initiative told NBC.
Though details of the initiative are still being worked out, it will reportedly involve the U.S. working closely with a number of international organizations and nations where gay rights are accepted to place pressure on those nations where they are not. The goal is to decriminalize and recognize fundamental human rights but not the broader panoply of other “gay rights” such as same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues.
While one would think that such a bold move on behalf of gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals around the world would be accepted with open arms by the LGBT community, that wasn’t the case with the left-leaning, LGBT-centric Out media outlet, which sharply criticized the initiative as being “racist” and “paternalistic” and a throwback to “colonialism.”
Ummmm? No. https://t.co/pn6HJFu7vE
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 20, 2019
Out writer Matthew Rodriguez argued that the global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality around the world was not a “benevolent” move by the supposedly anti-gay Trump, but was instead being done for a more sinister and subversive purpose.
“Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, the campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda,” Rodriguez wrote.
He said that because the initiative would strongly focus on Iran — which, as Grenell told NBC, had recently executed two gay men simply for being gay — the push for decriminalization was more about confronting a “geopolitical foe” than dealing with the plight suffered by homosexuals in nations with strict laws against that sexual orientation.
Rodriguez attempted to assert that even though homosexuality had been illegal in Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, “enforcement of anti-gay laws has softened somewhat” in recent years. In other words, yes, they still execute gay men, but not as many as before.
Josh Lederman, the NBC reporter who first shared the news of the initiative, was asked in an interview with Out about the strong focus on Iran. He replied, “We know Trump is very focused on Iran and is looking for ways to demonize it in the public opinion and this is one area where you know the US and European countries see eye to eye on Iran.”
“So it makes for them to focus strategically on that rather than sanctions, where there’s been a big gulf between the U.S. and its allies,” Lederman added.
Rodriguez then argued that this move by the Trump administration was nothing more than a page out of the “old colonialist handbook,” which in essence boiled down to “the racist, paternalistic process by which colonizing powers would decry the way men in power treated oppressed groups, like women, to justify attacking them.”
In this particular case, however, Rodriguez surmised “Grennell’s attack might be a case of white men trying to save brown gay men from brown straight men, to the same end.”
The writer proceeded to further criticize the movement, especially for only involving European activists thus far, and not activists from the region in question — apparently oblivious to the fact that those activists have to live in secret in order to avoid punishment or death … something Trump and Grenell are attempting to change.
There is an old saying that suggests one not look a gift horse in the mouth, meaning people shouldn’t seek to find fault in something that has been received as a gift or favor.
Unfortunately, for too many leftists consumed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, they simply can’t help but do so, and in the process will abandon their long-held goals and ideals and fellow allies world-wide if Trump does something that they would otherwise cheer if done by virtually anybody else.
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