President Obama's Unprecedented International Defense of LGBT (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | This is the kind of change many Americans have hoped for since 2008.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that President Barack Obama ordered United States diplomats to defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities abroad, in an unprecedented move for international human rights.

President Obama's order will make employees of the State, Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services departments, among a plethora of others, push to end the criminalization of LGBT persons and communities overseas and ramp up efforts to end the discrimination and violence many of them suffer abroad, with some nations punishing LGBT sexual activity with death, flogging, exile, or imprisonment. The president also mentioned that a "standing group" would be placed within the State Department to ensure rapid and effective responses to situations where the civil and human rights of LGBT persons or communities are impinged upon.

Two months after forcefully calling for the end of the Defense of Marriage Act at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner, Obama's bold statement highlights how drastically the foreign policy debate has shifted, now that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,2001 have long since left the proverbial rear view mirror.

LGBT communities experience more violence and discrimination overseas than stateside and it is impressive that the president considers the protection of human rights more of a cornerstone of his foreign policy than wielding economic or military influence abroad.

President Obama's order will make employees of(list agencies) push to end the criminalization of LGBT persons and communities overseas and ramp up efforts to end the discrimination and violence many of them suffer in places like Saudi Arabia or Yemen, which at times punish LGBT sexual activity with death or flogging.

This order is In stark contrast to GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann's claim that gay, lesbian, or transgender people can marry so long as they marry someone of the opposite sex, reported by the Des Moines Register. And it's a far cry from the ABC News report of Rick Santorum's recent decree that gay sex and marriage are not equal to their heterosexual counterparts.

Perhaps it is a result of changing American culture; but in my lifetime, I cannot remember a president or presidential candidate who made protecting LGBT communities overseas as one of his or her chief foreign policy goals.

Leaders of nations that outlaw, criminalize, and punish individuals merely for their sexual orientation, along with other public officials(domestic and foreign) that paint homosexuality as a disease and a cancer that will destroy a nation, could learn from President Obama's powerful claim that "No country should deny people their rights because of who they love."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111207/pl_ac/10616109_president_obamas_unprecedented_international_defense_of_lgbt

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