Nikki Haley, one of the few sane people — and even fewer women — in top positions in the Trump administration and a former Republican South Carolina governor, resigned this week as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. You’re asking yourself, What has that to do with LGBT issues? One of her votes was blood- chilling.
Upon the announcement of her resignation, many political pundits were chatting her up as one of the few moderates in the Trump administration. Now, that might be true on a number of subjects, but not on LGBT rights — and we need to record these items, as Republicans always seem to cover their past discriminations.
The Haley LGBT scorecard:
2010: Stated marriage is between one man and one woman.
2012: As governor, she supported upholding a ban on same-sex marriage.
2015: In the middle of transphobia hitting America, she pleaded with Americans to respect religious liberty — code words or a dog whistle for legalized discrimination against the LGBT community.
2016: She accepted Trump’s offer to be the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
2017: She voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty as a punishment for same-sex couples.
Want to know what her excuse was for that last one? “The resolution also condemns the death penalty all together, no matter the circumstances, and advocates for its abolition.” And then she added this: “They explicitly stated that, of course, the U.S. does not support the death penalty for gays.”
This of course outraged all human-rights organizations and anyone with real knowledge of foreign policy or understanding of why such a resolution needs to be issued. Here are some reasons: Uganda, Qatar, Yemen, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and — here’s one for my progressive friends — the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. All have on their law books, in some way, “death to LGBT people.” Then there are another 64 nations where LGBT people can be imprisoned.
While the resolution finally passed, it did so with Haley’s vote still recorded as supporting the killing of LGBT people. Don’t think we should ever forget that. And we shouldn’t allow any of our “moderate” allies to forget either. After all, death to gays doesn’t seem to be very moderate.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. You can follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MarkSegalPGN or Twitter at https://twitter.com/PhilaGayNews.