A Global LGBT Reality Check

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. | January 26, 2018

A couple of recent news items reinforce the perception of a backlash against the LGBT agenda. Even in the U.S. and Europe it seems support for the homosexual and transgender agenda is waning. At the very least there are signs that contestation of the LGBT agenda is not going away anytime soon.

A survey commissioned by GLAAD suggests LGBT social acceptance may actually be declining in the United States.

This year’s survey reflects a decline with people’s comfort year-over-year in every LGBTQ situation, losing ground that had been gained during the last four years. Three of the most personal interaction scenarios experienced significant declines with more people reporting discomfort with “learning a family member is LGBTQ”, “learning my child’s teacher is LGBTQ” and “learning my doctor is LGBTQ”.

The survey also found a decrease in Americans who identify as strong supporters of the LGBT agenda in all situations, as opposed to only qualified supporters of LGBT issues in certain situations. This may be a reaction to the intransigence of LGBT extremists in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case before the Supreme Court.

You can find the survey here. Of course, GLAAD conveniently blames this on Donald Trump, even though Trump has expressed support for LGBT advocacy and the Trump administration is still promoting LGBT rights internationally.

In Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) just elected an openly pro-family judge María Elósegui Ichaso to the European Court of Human Rights. You can read about her here in Spanish.

There were also pro-LGBT candidates in the running, but the vote was not even close, with 114 votes in her favor and the next runner up only garnering 76. This, even though María Elósegui Ichaso has written and spoken out against gender ideology in conservatives publications and environments. While the Court has always been more conservative than most human rights bodies, the sheer bluntness of María Elósegui Ichaso’s writings, one would have thought, might have disqualified her. Instead, it seems to have worked in her favor. Here is a zinger from María Elósegui Ichaso’s writing:

Those who build and express their sexual behavior in conformity with their biological sex develop balanced and healthy conduct. Those who commit themselves to going against their own biology develop several pathologies. This is clear.

Far from being unstoppable, it would seem the homosexual agenda and gender ideology do not have a certain political future. I wrote about a global backlash to extreme LGBT advocacy in The Federalist earlier this month.

Last December, Politico published a leaked memo by State Department senior aide Brian Hook, on the importance of realism in U.S. foreign policy. Extensively citing speeches of President Ronald Reagan, Hook argues that instead of seeking to impose human rights, democracy, and liberal values, the United States should lead by example and incentivize good behavior.

This return to pragmatism breaks with the Obama years’ rigid ideological dogmatism about human rights and clearly rattled the bureaucrats who leaked the memo. But his arguments cannot be easily shoved aside. Promoting a rigid leftist agenda internationally is a form of social engineering.

It is not only politically fraught, it is an ethereal goal that cannot be quantified. And it demands untold expenditures for unforeseeable amounts of time without any way of measuring the effects.

Nowhere is the obtuseness of this idealistic approach more evident than in U.S. promotion of LGBT policies abroad. Without applying any moral calculus, a realist approach to foreign affairs requires accepting that LGBT rights likely will never be accepted by all the people of the world, no matter how many millions of dollars we pour into foreign LGBT organizations. (read entire article at The Federalist)

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