LGBT Human Rights Abuses

In his Best Actor Oscar acceptance speech for his role playing Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in the U.S., Sean Penn said, "We�ve got to have equal rights for everyone." Today the State Department released a report to Congress that examines the human rights record of every country around the world. The Report, mandated by a 1974 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, requires the State Department to report annually on human rights conditions in all other countries. The report covers all categories of human rights abuse, including violence against women, trafficking in persons, religious persecution, torture and arbitrary detention. Since 1993, the reporting instructions have also required all U.S. embassies to include information on patterns of abuse directed at specific minority groups, including those based on sexual orientation.

This year's report points to a growing crisis in LGBT human rights abuse around the world. Not only are such abuses documented in countries with strained U.S. relations, such as Iran and Cuba, but also in countries considered close friends and allies, such as Egypt, Honduras, Jamaica, Nigeria and Russia. Several of the countries with the most grievous reported abuses are major recipients of U.S. aid or security assistance, a bargaining tool that could be used to encourage stronger human rights responses in those countries. Of the many documented incidents abroad including the arbitrary detention, torture, rape and/or murder of LGBT individuals, a number evidenced the complicit acceptance or direct participation of government officials.

Many believe that it is time for the State Department to move beyond a reporting agenda to an affirmative "protection agenda" that recognizes that LGBT rights are human rights. They believe that the United States government should respond to LGBT abuses abroad with the same principled concern that is shown to other categories of international human rights abuse, including the trafficking in human beings.

What kinds of human rights abuses are documented in the State Department�s report? What has the U.S. response been? How can the U.S. better address these abuses abroad? What LGBT issues should be addressed here in the U.S. in order to reinforce our country's credibility?