Trump administration plans to decriminalise homosexuality across the world
President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly attacked LGBT+ rights (Joe Raedle/Getty)
The Trump administration is set to launch a campaign to decriminalise homosexuality across the world.
America’s openly gay ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, will lead the effort to make homosexuality legal in every country, according to NBC News.
It is still against the law to be gay in roughly 70 countries around the globe.
The US embassy in Germany has reportedly flown in LGBT+ campaigners from across Europe for a meeting on Tuesday (February 19) to plan the push for decriminalisation in the mostly African and Middle Eastern countries.
The Trump administration is targeting the roughly 70 countries where homosexuality is illegal. (Mark Wilson/Getty)
An American official who was involved in organising the event said: “It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalise LGBTI status or conduct.”
The campaign is reportedly likely to request assistance from the European Union, United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The US does not intend to address issues such as marriage equality, same-sex adoption and anti-LGBT discrimination laws in countries where being gay is illegal.
Trump administration’s plan ‘prompted by hanging of gay man in Iran’
The strategy was reportedly conceived after a man was hanged in Iran last month for having gay sex and kidnapping two teenage boys.
Gay sex has been illegal in Iran since the revolution in 1979, and authorities periodically crack down on LGBT+ activity in the country.
Grenell wrote in German newspaper Bild that the hanging “should be a wakeup call for anyone who supports basic human rights.”
“Iran’s horrific actions are on par with the brutality and savagery regularly demonstrated by ISIS.”
— Trump administration’s ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell
He added: “This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even paedophilia. And it sadly won’t be the last time they do it either.
“Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalised and punishable by flogging and death.”
Grenell wrote that in the Muslim-majority country, “gay teenagers are publically hanged in order to terrify and intimidate others from coming out.
“Iran’s horrific actions are on par with the brutality and savagery regularly demonstrated by ISIS.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly attacked LGBT+ rights
The strategy to decriminalise homosexuality around the world has been revealed after multiple attacks by President Donald Trump’s government on LGBT+ rights.
His administration has repeatedly moved to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT+ workers.
He has also fought to have transgender people banned from the military, while the Department of Health and Human Services has considered legally erasing trans people.
Last year, the Trump administration exempted the US from provisions in the new USMCA trade deal with Mexico and Canada which required that LGBT+ rights protections be put in place.
