US may reduce intel with Mideast countries who criminalize homosexuality
Intelligence chief says laws that ban same-sex relations are not "an American value"
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALRichard Grenell, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, attends the "Rally for Equal Rights at the United Nations (Protesting Anti-Israeli Bias)" aside of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 18, 2019(photo credit: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS)
BERLIN – US acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, may curb intelligence sharing with Middle East countries that continue to criminalize same-sex relations.“We can’t just simply make the moral argument and expect others to respond in kind because telling others that it’s the right thing to do doesn’t always work,” he said, according to a New York Times report last Wednesday, adding that “to fight for decriminalization is to fight for basic human rights.”“We have the president’s total support,” Grenell said. “This is an American value, and this is United States policy.”“If a country that we worked in as the United States intelligence community was arresting women because of their gender, we would absolutely do something about it,” he said, according to the Times report, adding that “ultimately, the United States is safer when our partners respect basic human rights.”Last year, Grenell spoke at a protest against the Iranian regime-sponsored Al-Quds march in Berlin, which calls for the obliteration of Israel.In 2019, Grenell worked to secure a Bundestag resolution urging Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to outlaw the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah’s entire operation in Germany.Lebanon’s penal code outlaws “all sexual relations contrary to the laws of nature” and has been applied to detain and prosecute gay men and transsexual women.Middle East countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The proposed leveling of intelligence-sharing could affect 69 nations, most of which are in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa, according to the Times.After Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended his regime’s law to execute gays and lesbians last year, Grenell told The Jerusalem Post at the time: “The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights makes clear that these answers from the Iranian regime are violating basic UN principles. UN members should agree with the declaration in order to be members. Criminalizing homosexuality violates the declaration, plain and simple.”Grenell is the first openly gay cabinet member in the history of the US government. “Mr. Grenell would not say whether the administration was considering withholding additional cooperation, or ratcheting back current intelligence sharing with countries that criminalize homosexuality,” the Times reported. “His office is forming a group to review the issue and develop ideas, intelligence officials said.”Hadi Damien, the founder of Lebanon’s Beirut Pride group, who was present at meetings in Berlin with Grenell, said the intelligence director suggested foreign funding could be used as part of a carrot-and-stick strategy to influence countries to decriminalize homosexuality, the Times reported.
