[CTC] Obama must be consistent on LGBT rights

Wed Jun 3 08:16:07 PDT 2015

Obama must be consistent on LGBT rights

By SHANE LARSON & LORI PELLETIER

Surrounded on three sides by Senegal and the Atlantic Ocean on the fourth, the Republic of the Gambia is home to almost 2 million people in an area about the size of Massachusetts. According to statistics from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Gambia is our 186th largest trading partner with $37 million in traded goods as of 2013.

So it was with some fanfare that on Christmas Eve of 2014 the USTR announced it was terminating Gambia as a beneficiary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act due to “deepening concerns about the lack of progress with respect to human rights <http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/24/world/africa/ap-af-gambia-us-trade-agreement.html?_r=1>,” such as the country’s persecution of its LGBT population.

Less than a month later, during his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to grant him Fast Track trade promotion authority so that he could try to conclude a decade of talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP would cover nearly 40 percent of global GDP among the 12 negotiating countries, including known human and LGBT rights abusers Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

For the LGBT community, the debate around Fast Track and the TPP is not about tariff levels on agricultural and manufactured goods. It is not about undermining U.S. sovereignty by allowing corporations to sue in secret foreign trade tribunals. It is not about environmental protections, the safety of our food or the affordability of our medicine. Those are all important issues worthy of honest and open debate in Congress and around the country. And they are beginning to happen.

But for the LGBT community, this is an issue about our basic rights as human beings regardless of where in the world we call home. While we still have a lot of work to do here in the U.S., we are making amazing strides in our struggle for full and equal protection under the law. But, as with the important efforts being made for the rights of women, religious minorities and other persecuted groups, America must also fight for LGBT rights in other countries. In fact, President Obama has made “Advancing and Protecting the Rights of LGBT Persons around the World <http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/lgbt_record.pdf>” a key bullet point on his administration’s official LGBT record.

When countries gain better trading privileges with the U.S. they are gaining better access to one of the world’s strongest and most robust economies. Every nation wants that special access so it is not something that should be granted easily.

Brunei is our 121st largest trading partner with $576 million in trade. Malaysia is our 20th largest trading partner at $40.3 billion. And Vietnam is our 27th largest at almost $30 billion. Their inclusion in the TPP means those numbers are only going to grow if it is passed, rewarding their authoritarian governments and making it even harder to pressure them to change how they treat their citizens.

It is easy to make an example out of Gambia, but if President Obama is serious about advancing the cause of LGBT rights around the country then the TPP is his chance to show it.

Recently, five members of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus sent a letter <http://pocan.house.gov/sites/pocan.house.gov/files/LGBT_BRUNEI_TPP.pdf> to President Obama asking for clarification on the continued inclusion of Brunei and Malaysia in TPP negotiations in light of “severe human rights abuses, including adopting penal codes permitting the imprisonment and physical harm of LGBT people.” We join our community’s representatives in Congress by asking why are these two countries continuing to be included in a trade bill granting special trade privileges that the President lobbied for in a national televised address to Congress less than a month after excluding Gambia from a similar trade agreement for similar behavior?

In their letter, the representatives called on Obama to “bring consistency to the Administration’s foreign and trade policy,” and “continue this record of equality by removing Brunei and Malaysia from the TPP if they neglect to address these abuses.” We hope that the rest of our LGBT community will join in this call for President Obama to bring consistency to his policy of “Advancing and Protecting the Rights of LGBT Persons around the World <http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/lgbt_record.pdf>.”

This may not be the easy or convenient thing to do but, as President Obama should know, the fight for equality seldom is.

Shane Larson and Lori Pelletier are co-presidents of Pride at Work.

- See more at: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/03/04/obama-must-consistent-lgbt-rights/#sthash.VkPBnvqD.9GTrdGtO.dpuf
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