Under the Obama administration, things weren’t exactly sunny for a string of island nations in the Caribbean. Like dozens of other countries on the receiving end of the president’s extreme social agenda, they were under enormous pressure from the bullies at the State Department to abandon ship on their traditional Christian beliefs. Sometimes that harassment came in the form of financial blackmail — threatening foreign aid if the leaders didn’t comply. Other times, it came in the form of public shaming. But no matter how it arrived, the result was always the same: outrage that the United States — of all countries — should be browbeating the world into submission on issues that are still fiercely controversial in most of the world.

For Obama’s State Department, which seemed oblivious to any problem not preceded by the letters L-G-B-T, this only added to the president’s embarrassing diplomatic legacy. But now that the nightmare of the last eight years is behind us, Americans aren’t the only ones looking for change. In the Caribbean, hundreds of pastors and church leaders are urging Donald Trump to chart a new course for U.S. relations — one that doesn’t include an obvious disrespect for other nations’ values. It’s time, the Evangelical Association of the Caribbean writes, for the White House to stop using the State Department to impose its LGBT agenda on other countries.

We write to you as concerned Christian ministers and churches from the Caribbean region (including the Bahamas) who hope and pray that the United States, under your leadership, will once again cast light from ‘The City upon a Hill’… Sadly, during recent years, that City has too often cast shadows instead of light. We refer specifically to the policies of the U.S. State Department and other government agencies involved in foreign policy that have undertaken to coerce our countries into accepting a mistaken version of marriage.

[But] the promotion of ‘gay’ rights must come at the expense of human rights because the two are immiscible. One is founded on the ‘Laws of Nature and Nature’s God’ and the other on moral relativism, which eviscerates the very idea of natural rights. If you have one, you cannot have the other. As it turns out, the Obama administration, among others, has shown this to be so, as so-called ‘gay rights’ are pre-empting human rights, such as freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience.

We implore you urgently to review this matter, to revoke relevant executive orders and policies, and to thus to restore to ‘The City upon a Hill’ the bright beam that once shone from it.

For people like Pastor Paul Mursalin, who joined me on “Washington Watch” Monday, this is the time to turn the page on Obama’s global “tolerance” offensive. “We were coerced into accepting [the administration’s LGBT] agenda, threatening fund withdrawal and a number of other things. And our governments are under severe pressure to relent. We now see a ray of hope under President Trump and Vice President Pence, where some of this can be reversed and give us a chance to maintain our traditional conservative Christian values on the issue.”

Of course, one of the best examples of the Obama administration’s disdain for other countries’ beliefs was the addition of a full-time, taxpayer-funded diplomat who openly identified as gay to the payroll whose sole purpose was forcing the president’s radical social agenda on reluctant countries. And as usual, the 44th president bypassed Congress to appoint one. Like most conservatives, we encouraged the new administration to do away with the position and focus on the real human rights crises — like Christian persecution and genocide.

An official at the State Department cast doubt on that possibility Monday, telling one media outlet that the Trump team had decided to keep LGBT Envoy Randy Berry in his post. The rumor even caught LGBT activists off guard. “This is really surprising to me,” said an official at GLAAD. “But Berry has really been effective in that job.” If the report is true, it will be a disappointing development for people at home and abroad — not to mention a major setback in getting the State Department back on track with its statutorily defined mission of promoting human rights and religious freedom. The Department’s preoccupation with Obama’s libertinism left a tremendous void internationally that resulted in thousands of religious Christians and other minorities losing their homes, the livelihood and even their very lives. Keeping Berry only signals to the world that the extreme agenda of the Obama years is still deeply entrenched in the State Department.

Originally published here.

Give Me Liberty to Give Me Death?

The city of Washington, DC, is like an unruly child. Sometimes it takes a strong hand to bring them back in line. The U.S. House has had its hands full trying — especially when the District tests its boundaries with increasingly liberal policy. The so-called Death with Dignity law, DC’s latest attempt at legalizing assisted suicide, is one example. Fortunately, Congress is the one with the final say over most of the District’s laws — and the GOP majority is doing its best to beat the 30-day window it has to act.

Monday, the House Oversight Committee took the first step in holding the city accountable, voting 22-14 to overturn it (with one Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper, Tenn., siding with Republicans). Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, described the implications of DC’s legislation: “In this particular law, there is no safeguard against the pressure of family members’ … situations where the one that is ill … feels the pressure to go ahead and make decisions… I disapprove of this action completely…. Instead of ‘Death with Dignity,’ it’s one that could lead to horrific situations.”

The Left’s anger is trained on Republicans for taking on the District, despite the fact that the Constitution gives Congress legal authority over its laws. Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK) warned: “America — wake up! No matter how frayed the fabric of our conscience we must hold it together to stand against the civilized, organized effort of barbarity veneered as consent, dignity, and duly passed law… We must wake up. We cannot allow the legalization of a system of expanding murder-suicide pacts.”

Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), a pastor for many years before entering Congress, expressed dismay, saying, “It’s amazing to me how we have become a society that so trivializes life, as though it’s something that is not important or something that can be snuffed away.” He described DC’s legislation as “an enormous step toward normalizing euthanasia. It’s a huge step toward a continued march of trivializing life.” Another member agreed, arguing, “We cannot allow a system of murder-suicide.”

For conservatives, it’s not so much a race against DC as it is a race against the clock. The law goes in effect Saturday, and with Congress adjourning early for the holiday, the House has two days to repeal it. Yesterday, during a conversation with the House Freedom Caucus, our friend Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was asked why the House was getting involved in the local debate.

We disagree with the law, we disagree with the premise of what DC did, and we have the constitutional authority to disapprove… As some of you may know, the time frame to deal with this ends Friday. We’re calling on our leadership to bring it up. … [T]wo things can happen. Leadership could call it up, or, if the chairman files the report, which is typically done in a 24-hour timeframe after the committee takes a vote, if the chairman files the report, then any one of us can bring it up as a privileged motion. And so we would hope that the chairman will actually file the report with the clerk, and if he doesn’t, and holds on to it, it’s in essence denying every single member a right they have under the rules to call up this particular resolution. So we hope the report gets filed; we hope leadership brings this bill to the floor.

Dr. Wenstrup has worked hard on this. I would remind people Dr. Wenstrup is a guy who has served our military, been on the front lines providing surgery to our soldiers who need it. And he understands how badly this legislation is written and our obligation to overturn it. So I hope that happens sometime here in the next 48 hours.

Unfortunately, all the District’s law does is further the far-Left philosophy (like we witnessed in Obamacare) that ending people’s lives is easier (and less expensive) than caring for them. There’s no dignity in taking a life — at any stage. Unfortunately, this is the lie of the culture of death that’s expanding right along with abortion. Both movements are fueled by a selfish belief that people are burdens, not blessings. But as far too many people find out — too late — ending a life will always cause more suffering than it cures.

Originally published here.

A Real D.C. Power Couple…

Behind every good man there’s a great woman, they say. I’m living proof of that! So is FRC’s David Christensen. For FRC’s vice president for government affairs, the pro-life movement really is a family business. David’s wife, Autumn, spent more than a decade on Capitol Hill as director of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, bringing together leaders and outside groups to defend the unborn in legislation. Just last month, Autumn took a new job as a part of SBA List. Our friends at The Daily Signal did a wonderful profile on the Christensens, and Valentine’s Day seems like the perfect time to celebrate the impact this husband-and-wife team are having on the movement — and the country. Click here to read their story.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.