Clinton's Gay Pride Remarks Raise Enduring Democratic Questions

Gay Pride swept the State Department yesterday when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed that she and her colleagues are as committed as ever to helping the world’s endangered LGBT population.

“In some places, violence against the LGBT community is permitted by law and inflamed by public calls to violence; in others, it persists insidiously behind closed doors,” declared the Secretary. “Just as I was very proud to say the obvious more than 15 years ago in Beijing that…women’s rights are human rights, well, let me say today that human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights, once and for all.” The diplomatic crowd went wild. And so they should. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Clinton’s remarks hit the nail on the head. But are they enough?

Considering the State Department’s own moves toward equality — like making it easier for trans people to receive new passports and extending equal benefits to gay couples — why does our nation continue to give aid to governments that trample gay rights? If the State Department, the international emissary of America’s democratic dream, wants to get really about spreading gay rights, maybe it should start hitting foreign governments below the belt: the wallet. Or maybe democracy’s a far more complicated beast.

Secretary Clinton must have felt quite at home yesterday as she discussed a familiar, beloved topic, and made numerous references to her past as a gay rights champion. “Ten years ago, I was the first First Lady to march in a Pride parade, and it was so much fun,” said Clinton, before launching into the equality-oriented accomplishments she achieved while Senator. It was exhilarating to see Clinton back on the gay rights train, and to hear how she’s helping the State Department evolve overseas.

Embassies around Africa, for example, are asking nations to write up official government reports on LGBT rights. The Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor gives away “emergency grants” to activists furthering queer causes, and the State Department, according to Clinton, keeps LGBT rights at the forefront of their diplomatic discussions. These are grand developments, yes, but international relations can get sticky, and more pressing concerns, like insuring free elections or fighting poverty, often thrust themselves into the mix, leaving gay advocacy out in the cold.

Our government spends billions on foreign aid each year. Zimbabwe, where gay activists are regularly jailed, received about $45 million last year from USAID, an independent agency that gets foreign policy advice from the State Department. Notoriously homophobic Uganda, meanwhile, received about $300 million. On the Middle East front, the Iraqi state, which has spent too much American money to count, has taken no steps to curb rampant anti-gay violence and murder. Just last week police forces raided a gay safe house and tortured its inhabitants. Human rights reports and diplomatic jeer aren’t enough to combat this sort of behavior.

Don’t get me wrong, international deliberation does do good work. When Uganda’s lawmakers proposed executing gay people, Secretary Clinton helped persuade that government to reconsider its draconian proposals. And international communities pushed Malawi to release an LGBT couple that had been jailed after getting married. These are isolated wins. Homophobic attitudes continue to proliferate in nations where we’re working to “spread democracy.” Should gay inclusion be a prerequisite for international development?

The State department vows to “advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world.” An ideal democracy makes no exception when it comes to its people’s sex lives. All have a vote and should therefore be included in the national family. Any amount of discrimination, even lack of protection against job protection, taints the democratic ideal. If the U.S. government wants to grow robust democracies, it must tie aid and assistance to LGBT inclusion. Aid recipients should be enticed to make moves toward same-sex equality.

But perhaps that’s a selfish demand. Pumping millions into fighting poverty and setting up elections may pay off more than sponsoring a gay group where it won’t be understood. The real fight may be on the ground, where the State Department often spends liberally on educational programs, which would do well to include mention of sexual freedom.

It’s very likely that economic improvements and fresh infrastructure are just as important to changing people’s minds as diplomatic demands and threats. But then you’re presented with even more complicated questions. How do you determine when “universal human rights” trample an indigenous culture? Anti-gay leaders abroad often justify their position by claiming homosexuality’s an imported culture that has no place in their homeland. How do you overcome those theories without obstructing what people consider to be “native?” There’s no easy answer on that one. And that’s the point.

I’ve never thought it was a coincidence that the June 28, 1969 Stonewall Rebellion fell so close to Independence Day. It even coincides with a key battle in the American revolution: on June 28, 1776, South Carolinian patriots staved off a British attack just as the Continental Congress was gathering the final votes for its Declaration of Independence.

Some chalk Stonewall up to summer heat, or the fact that Judy Garland had just died, or just the natural explosion of frustration. I like to think, however, that the men and women who launched the modern gay rights movement were inspired by our nation’s revolutionary spirit. They were carrying on America’s democratic dream, and it’s our duty to keep it alive, to inspect and nurture it.

Democracy doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t create itself. It is a force that must be engaged, questioned, shaped and solidified.  The state is but a vessel, democracy the driver that leads it toward equality and prosperity. It’s up to all people, even in the most liberal of lands, to spread the democratic love. And, as Clinton said yesterday, it isn’t always a straightforward mission:  “The struggle for equality is never, ever finished. And it is rarely easy, despite how self-evident it should be. But the hardest-fought battles often have the biggest impact.”

Image via Rajosta's Flickr