By Stephen D. Foster, Jr. / 12.18.2016
Conservatives apparently want a witch hunt in every government department.
Earlier this month, Donald Trump’s transition team demanded that the Energy Department give them a list of names of employees who study climate change and the labs used to research it. It is assumed that Trump’s team wanted the names so they could fire anyone who supports what science already tells us: that climate change is real and humans have contributed to it.
Well, the Energy Department told Trump to go f*ck themselves.
But now the hate group known as the Family Research Council is calling on Trump to persecute gay employees and any employee who supports LGBT rights within the State Department.
In a letter to Trump’s team, Tony Perkins whines about how President Obama and Hillary Clinton protected the LGBT community from anti-gay bigots who want to strip them of their human rights.
He then complained about how America is offending some nations by hiring gay people. You know, because the Family Research Council is a fan of how Russia persecutes gay people.
“To carry out this extreme agenda, the Obama administration has systematically filled the ranks of State with LGBTQ and abortion activists,” Perkins wrote before calling for Trump and his team to conduct a witch hunt. “Unless the next secretary of state is willing to resist and remove this embedded agenda, the promotion and protection of true human rights, like religious liberty, will continue to languish.”
That’s right, Perkins wants Trump to be like Joe McCarthy and he doubled down by literally demanding that LGBT people and those who support LGBT rights be “ferreted out” and replaced by anti-gay bigots.
It’s for this reason that I have raised concerns about the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. I certainly don’t see Tillerson cut from the same cloth as Clinton or Kerry, but he doesn’t have to be for these anti-life, liberal social policies to continue. He must have the courage to stop the promotion of this anti-family, anti-life agenda, which is very much a question mark given that he capitulated to activists pushing to liberalize the Boy Scouts’ policy on homosexuality when he was at the helm of the organization.
The incoming administration needs to make clear that these liberal policies will be reversed and the “activists” within the State Department promoting them will be ferreted out and will be replaced by conservatives who will ensure the State Department focuses on true international human rights like religious liberty which is under unprecedented assault.
But Donald Trump was in no mood for Perkins’ hate and sent a strong message delivered by Trump spokesman Jason Miller that discrimination will not be tolerated.
“President-elect Trump campaigned on a message of unity in order to bring all Americans together. To think that discrimination of any kind will be condoned or tolerated in a Trump Administration is simply absurd.”
In other words, Perkins can go f*ck himself.
Now, this doesn’t mean that we should trust that Trump will keep to his word. After all, he has repeatedly flip-flopped through his campaign and ever since the election. But it should be noted that Trump sent a similar message to anti-bigots last month. After being asked about marriage equality, Trump told 60 Minutes that same-sex marriage has been settled by the courts and that he’s “fine with that.”
So for now, at least Trump is being consistent when it comes to LGBT right. Conservatives must be furious.