To most of these countries, this is a slap in the face–a disrespect of their religious views and sovereignty. The result is the erosion of public goodwill toward the US and endangered relations with the socially conservative countries of Africa, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, where the majority of populations believe these Pride-centric social ideologies are “morally unacceptable.”
Why does our government elevate the LGBT community above other minorities around the world? Where are the flags for the persecuted women and Christians? What about the extreme persecution of Muslim minorities, such as the one million Uyghurs interred in "reeducation camps" in China, many of whom have endured forced sterilization and abortion?
In some countries, women are sentenced to stoning or flagellation for adultery. Women in many countries still lack basic rights, such as property ownership or legal rights over their own children. Girls are still being barred from attending school. Women and girls account for 60 percent of victims of global human trafficking each year, including sexual exploitation and forced labor. Thirty-seven percent of girls in the least developed countries are married by age 18 and ten percent are married before the young age of fifteen.
What about the more than 360 million Christians worldwide that face persecution or discrimination for their faith, including murder, abduction, rape, sexual harassment, and attacks against churches? Christians are “harassed” (verbal abuse, physical violence, killings) in more countries than any other religious group in the world. The Christian flag is over 100 years old and symbolizes peace, fidelity, and sacrifice. This flag represents at least 7.3 billion people, about one-third of the world’s population. Why doesn’t the Christian flag have a place at US embassies?
If the answer is that not all Americans are Christians, then it should also be considered that most Americans still take a traditional view of marriage and sexuality. Should Christians, Muslims, and those who believe in traditional families (or science, in the case of “gender identity”) be forced to celebrate homosexuality and gay pride even if it violates their conscience or beliefs?
The left applies strong political pressure to push their social agenda all around the world. Biden’s ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, routinely labels Hungary as a country in “democratic backsliding,” or as an abuser of human rights simply because Hungarians, much like Americans twenty years ago, respect the privacy of homosexual couples in their country. At the same time, they will not accept sexual identity curriculum in their schools, nor the normalization of transgenderism in their society.
But why are LGBT activists so politically powerful? In large part, because leftists fund nonprofit organizations as an integral part of their strategy–a strategy promoted by cultural Marxists for decades, with the intent of spreading communistic ideology worldwide –Marxism’s forced obedience and conformity to one truth and ideology. Leftists are great at this strategy and the right has not yet realized the importance of funding NGOs to the same degree.
Tools like the Corporate Equality Index, developed by activists at the Human Rights Campaign, an NGO funded by organizations like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, have changed the fabric of American society. This group compels, threatens, and pressures corporations like Target, Nike, Budweiser, and many others into sexual identity obsession and compliance in order to achieve a “perfect” index score. The fact that even the Fox News employee handbook offers employees a “workplace gender transition plan,” allows transgender people their choice of bathrooms, and encourages “proper” pronoun use - in the pursuit of a perfect Corporate Equality Index Score (which incidentally, Fox has achieved) - should give us a clue about the power of leftist NGOs in the U.S.
While living in Central Europe for the past couple of months, I have endured the embarrassment of hearing Europeans talk about the US obsession with sexual orientation, like drag queen shows on US military bases. The US is not being taken seriously, especially in our foreign policy; we have become a laughingstock. I often hear, and this pains me to say, Europeans express that the US is in decline.
Recently, I spent the afternoon in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s hometown of Felcsút, with men and women old enough to remember the communist occupation of the Soviet Union (1945-91). During the occupation, Hungarians looked to the US as an example of a nation where family, freedom, and religious belief could flourish. But Hungarians believe the US is now immersed in the “woke” cultural Marxism that they fought so hard to destroy in their own country.
One gentleman in Felcsút, gravely concerned about current US leadership and its childish “wokeism,” asked me (with tears in his eyes) if there was hope for the US. I assured him, biting my cheek to keep from crying too, that America doesn’t belong to the Biden administration or to the sexual activists funded by the rich leftist elite.
America belongs to the people, and the American people are sane even if our corporations are faddish and cowardly, and our government has given itself over to political activists and silly, empty nonsense. Americanism has nothing to do with “gender identity,” and American citizens are much greater than their sexual orientations, preferences, or desires. Our Constitution guarantees the rights of all Americans – not just the select groups fixated on defining people by sex.
Shea Bradley-Farrell, PhD is president of Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research and Education in Washington, DC, and the first international senior fellow for the Center for Fundamental Rights in Budapest, Hungary.
