National
Geithner urged to advocate against LGBT abuses overseas
Bachus, Frank draw attention to committee amendment
Leading lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner drawing attention to a recently approved amendment advocating that foreign governments receiving multilateral development bank funds don’t engage in LGBT persecution.
In a letter dated March 30 and obtained by the Washington Blade, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), chair of the committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who’s gay and ranking Democrat on the panel, ask Geithner to inform U.S. officials at multilateral development institutions — including the World Bank — of the committee’s recently adopted position against funding for governments that allow abuses against LGBT people and religious minorities overseas.
“We urge you to be mindful of the Committee’s views on this matter, and particularly in light of the important authorization requests that Treasury has made this year, we also urge you to relay these views to the executive directors who represent the [United States] at these institutions,” Bachus and Frank write. “We believe this is important not only as a matter of public policy and the advancement of American values, but also politically in terms of our ability to generate the necessary support to enable the [United States] to continue to play a significant and influential role at these institutions.”
Natalie Wyeth, a Treasury Department spokesperson, said the department has received the letter and is reviewing it.
On March 15, the House Financial Services Committee approved by a voice vote the amendment as part of legislation that outlines fiscal year 2012 budget priorities for issues under its jurisdiction, including recommended funds for the Treasury Department and the World Bank.
The amendment urges the Treasury Department to advocate that foreign governments receiving assistance from the multilateral development banks don’t engage in gross violations of human rights, such as the denial of freedom of religion and physical persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Bachus and Frank’s letter make particular note of persecution of LGBT people in Uganda as a reason for passing the amendment.
Legislation that would institute the death penalty for homosexual acts has been pending before the Ugandan parliament, although foreign media has recently reported the measure has been shelved. Additionally, David Kato, an activist who was working against the pending measure, was brutally murdered after a publication in the country identified him as gay.
“In some African countries, we have seen the physical persecution of people who are members of sexual minorities,” Bachus and Frank write. “In Uganda, which was a major beneficiary of the multilateral debt relief initiatives, there is active persecution of people who are members of sexual minorities.”
In addition to advocating against LGBT abuses abroad, the letter also decries persecutions of religious minorities, such as the reported hostility towards Christianity in the Middle East.
“We have seen troubling examples of people being persecuted, imprisoned and threatened with execution, for example, in Pakistan, simply for converting from one religion to another,” Bachus and Frank write. “Often, it is people being punished for converting to Christianity.”
The letter notes the United States isn’t entirely responsible for setting policies at multilateral institutions such as World Bank, but says the U.S. role is important.
“We recognize that the United States does not set the policies at these institutions, but we do have an influential voice, and we believe that it is in our interest to use that voice to support what we view to be fundamental human values, regardless of whether a particular government is fully democratic or not,” Bachus and Frank write.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, said the letter and the adoption of the amendment by the committee is “a big deal.”
“The United States has significant leverage and a strong voice in the World Bank and the regional development banks,” Bromley said. “Until now, these development institutions have largely shied away from LGBT issues, even in terms of reaching out and supporting access by marginalized LGBT communities to social development and public health programs.”
Bromley encourage the U.S. executive director of these development banks — especially the U.S. director of the World Bank — to leverage U.S. investments to “ensure equal access for all individuals to the public health services and economic opportunities that Americans are supporting through our annual development contributions.”
Bachus’ signature to the letter is noteworthy because he has an anti-gay voting record in Congress and in recent years has consistently scored a “0” on the Human Rights Campaign’s congressional scorecard. The Alabama lawmaker has voted against hate crimes protection legislation, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director for National Log Cabin Republicans, said the values of protecting human freedoms and individual liberty that espouses are conservative values.
“Further, no member of Congress should ever be be ruled out as a potential ally to the LGBT community,” Cooper said. “Log Cabin Republicans continuously seek to foster friends in development among elected Republican office holders as well as their staff and campaigns.”
Download a copy of the letter here.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
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Calendar: May 16-22
