Biden’s Global LGBT Agenda

No longer content to use social media companies to ban speech offensive to progressives in the United States, the Biden administration has now launched a new $2.5 million funding opportunity intended to silence opponents of the LGBT agenda in any country with the temerity to attempt to ban LGBT propaganda directed toward minors, or to discourage transgender identification by children.

Funded by the resources of the Global Equality Fund, the United States taxpayer subsidized public-private partnership with the European Union, Nordic countries, and a long list of private foundations, the Global LGBT Inclusive Democracy and Empowerment Fund (GLIDE) is ostensibly designed to use “political, government, community and religious leaders to promote political engagement and reduce intolerance and human rights abuse against LGBT communities.” Filled with platitudes and promises like “Strong democracies are inclusive democracies,” and “The engagement, influence, and representation of LGBT people in political processes and governance structures is intended to empower connected, skilled, and sustainable LGBT movements for democracy and human rights,” GLIDE is actually designed to silence those—including religious leaders—who are insufficiently supportive of the LGBT agenda, or who may even believe and teach that same-sex behavior is contrary to the natural law or an offense against God.

Warning that opponents of same-sex marriage and transgender rights for children must be labeled “anti-democratic,” GLIDE demands that “communication strategies” be employed to “address and counter anti-democratic trends and disinformation in democratic processes.” Specifically targeting measures opposed to LGBT propaganda, the GLIDE fund demands “the removal of restrictions on the free speech of LGBTQI+ activists such as those included in the so-called anti-propaganda laws” designed to protect minors.

It is not a coincidence that one of the major private funders of GLIDE is TrustLaw, the Thompson Reuters Foundation’s global pro bono service, focused on identifying any country that attempts to ban LGBT communication targeting minors. In 2018, TrustLaw released a report identifying—and vilifying—various legislations aimed at banning LGBT propaganda to minors that have been enacted or proposed in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Titled “Expression Abridged: A Legal Analysis of Anti-LGBT Propaganda Laws,” the 2018 TrustLaw report claims to “expose the legal contradictions between the anti-propaganda laws and national and international legislation defending freedom of speech and access to information among many other rights.”

Declaring that “anti-LGBT propaganda laws are used to further discrimination with stigmatizing effects on LGBT people, mostly under the pretext of protecting the wellbeing and healthy development of children,” the TrustLaw report suggests that such laws come into conflict with other national legislation and international treaties and conventions to which these countries are party. Claiming that anti-LGBT propaganda laws are “in breach of children’s rights under national and international legislation,” the TrustLaw report pushes to redefine the family, promising to explore “how the notion of family is defined in domestic laws,” since adherence to family and traditional values is one of the fundamental arguments used to advance legislation against LGBT propaganda.

TrustLaw points out that Russian legislation makes it illegal to distribute amongst minors materials that supports non-traditional sexual relationships: “Breaching the Russian Legislation is punishable by the imposition of a fine in respect of individuals…if a foreigner breaches the Russian legislation that person may be detained for up to 15 days and then deported and or fined and deported.” A number of Russian provinces have introduced similar legislation. In St. Petersburg, the promotion of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgenderism, and pedophilia to minors is banned, as well as “forming in a child’s mind a distorted perception of social equality of traditional and non-traditional marital relationships.”

TrustLaw then points to three international treaties with relevance to the jurisdiction and freedoms impacted by the propaganda laws. Claiming that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child all offer protections from legislation against LGBT propaganda. Under the UNCRC, TrustLaw maintains that under these laws children would be restricted from accessing or requesting information materials and guidance relating to sexuality, which would restrict their rights as listed in Articles 13-17 of the UNCRC.

President Biden’s GLIDE Fund promises that the $2.5 million initiative “will be led by or have strong support from and participation by LGBTQI+ organizations and communities.” GLIDE’s request for proposal pledges to the LGBT community that it will adhere to their motto: “Nothing about us without us.” The Biden administration has also promised that proposed program designs for the GLIDE Fund must “include plans for tailored programming engaging queer women, transgender and intersex persons and other persons from marginalized LGBTQI+ communities such as religious, racial or ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, older persons, or youth.”

It is likely that the GLIDE initiative will continue to use international treaties to attempt to enforce compliance with the LGBT agenda—including its attempts to propagandize to children promoting transgender rights and same-sex relationships. The decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee will help to facilitate all of this in a misguided attempt to “protect” LGBT expression and culture. And the United States taxpayers who are helping to subsidize all of this will have no way to confront any of it.

Anne Hendershott is professor of sociology and director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.