U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Wednesday did not speak about LGBTQ rights abroad during his confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of state.

The Florida Republican in his opening statement to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee noted President-elect Donald Trump “returns to office with an unmistakable mandate from the voters.”

“They want a strong America, a strong America engaged in the world, but guided by a clear objective to promote peace abroad and security and prosperity here at home,” said Rubio.

“The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear,” he added. “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”

Trump nominated Rubio a week after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded she lost the presidential election.

Rubio in 2022 defended Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed. The Florida Republican that year also voted against the Respect for Marriage Act that passed with bipartisan support.

LGBTQ rights a cornerstone of Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy

President Joe Biden in February 2021 signed a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administration’s overall foreign policy. A few months later he named Jessica Stern, the former executive director of Outright International, a global advocacy group, as special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad.

Ned Price, who was the State Department’s first openly gay spokesperson, during a May 2021 interview with the Washington Blade noted the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations was one of the administration’s priorities in its efforts to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.

Trump during his first administration tapped then-U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who has been tapped as special missions envoy, to lead an initiative that encouraged countries to decriminalize homosexuality. Activists with whom the Blade has previously spoken questioned whether this effort had any tangible results.

Stern in 2022 noted the Biden-Harris administration also supported marriage equality efforts in countries where activists said they were possible through legislation or the judicial process.

Brittney Griner in December 2022 returned to the U.S. after Russia released her in exchange for a convicted arms dealer. The lesbian WNBA star had been serving a nine-year prison sentence in a penal colony after a court earlier that year convicted her on the importation of illegal drugs after Russian customs officials found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

The State Department in 2022 began to issue passports with an “X” gender marker.

The Biden-Harris administration in response to the signing of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act sanctioned officials and removed the country from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free the U.S. Harris during a 2023 press conference with then-Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, spoke about LGBTQ rights.

Chantale Wong, the U.S. director of the Asian Development Bank, in 2022 became the first openly lesbian woman ambassador. David Pressman, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Hungary, and Scott Miller, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are two of the other American ambassadors who Biden nominated that are gay.

Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2021 appointed former U.S. Ambassador to Malta Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley as the State Department’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer.

U.S. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the State Department’s DEI efforts during Rubio’s confirmation hearing.

“The Biden administration often undercut effective foreign policy by inserting ideological and political requirements into the fabric of personnel decisions and policy execution,” said Risch.

“Rather than making hires or promotions based on merit and effectiveness, the department created new diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) requirements that distracted from this mission, undermined morale, and created an unfair and opaque process for promotions and performance evaluations,” he added. “Fealty to progressive politics became the benchmark for success. As we look around the United States that view is diminishing very quickly amongst even large progressive cooperations.”

President-elect Donald Trump has announced Tammy Bruce will become the next State Department spokesperson.

Bruce is a Fox News contributor who has described herself as a “gay woman” on the network. A GLAAD spokesperson on Monday pointed out to the Washington Blade that Bruce has also made anti-transgender comments.

“Tammy is a highly respected political analyst who understood the power of importance of ‘MAGA’ early on,” said Trump in a Jan. 3 Truth Social post that announced her appointment. “She received her bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Southern California and, after being a liberal activist in the 1990s, saw the lies and fraud of the Radical Left, and quickly became one of the strongest Conservative voices on radio and television.”

Outstanding choice @HeyTammyBruce is a true professional & patriot pic.twitter.com/RuVKL6NwwO

— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) January 4, 2025

Trump has nominated U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to succeed Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Ned Price in 2021 became the State Department’s first openly gay spokesperson. He stepped down in March 2023.

The State Department on Tuesday honored a Ghanaian LGBTQ activist and seven other human rights advocates from around the world.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented Rightify Ghana Executive Director Ebenezer Peegah with the Secretary of State’s Human Rights Defender Award during a ceremony at the State Department.

“He’s been a prominent figure advocating for equality and justice,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Enrique Roig told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview.

The other human rights activists who received the award include:

• Mary Ann Abunda, a migrant workers advocate in Kuwait

• Permanent Human Rights Assembly of Bolivia President Amparo Carvajal

• Aida Dzhumanazarova, country director for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Kyrgyzstan

• Mang Hre Lian, founder of the Chin Media Network in Myanmar

• Juana Ruiz of Asociación Asvidas, an organization that advocates for survivors of gender-based violence in Colombia

• Rufat Sararov, a former prosecutor who runs Defense Line in Azerbaijan

The State Department posthumously honored Thulani Maseko, a prominent human rights activist from Eswatini who was killed in 2023. His wife, Tanele Maseko, accepted the award on his behalf.

The ceremony took place on International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948. Sararov did not attend because Azeri authorities arrested him before he could obtain a visa that would have allowed him to travel to the U.S.

Ghanaian Supreme Court to rule on anti-LGBTQ law on Dec. 18

Ghanaian lawmakers on Feb. 28 approved the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill that would, among other things, criminalize allyship. President Nana Akufo-Addo has said he will not sign the bill until the Supreme Court rules on whether it is constitutional or not. 

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law on Dec. 18. John Dramani Mahama, the country’s president-elect, will take office on Jan. 7.

Ruig applauded Peegah’s efforts to highlight the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill.

“For us in the U.S. government, the work that he’s done on this issue has also been instrumental in our own discussions with the current government as well as the incoming administration around the concerns that we’ve expressed with regards to this legislation,” Roig told the Washington Blade “He’s been an important partner in all this as well.”

Peegah on Aug. 14 met with Pope Francis at the Vatican.