Trump’s Religious Freedom Commissioner Supports The Recall of US Ambassador Daniel Foote
Tony Perkins, one of Donald Trump’s Religious Freedom Commissioners, has made a statement saying the recalling of US Ambassador to Zambia, Daniel Foote, for criticizing Zambia for sentencing two men to jail for 15 years for having gay sex was the right move as he had broken trust with his hosts and could no longer effectively serve as US representative overseas.
Writing in a blog post, Mr. Perkins said that this would also serve as an indicator of how the US Government will act elsewhere, adding that America respects everyone, but it won’t promote values that are inconsistent with what US President Donald Trump stands for.
Mr. Perkins wondered what exact mandate Daniel Foote was operating under when he insulted Zambia’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) policies and judicial system by calling the jailing of two men “horrifying,” and Zambians beliefs on LGBT “oppressive.”
Mr. Perkins accused the previous Obama administration of being more concerned with “cultural imperialism” than “diplomacy”, but that President Trump was slowly working his way through the bureaucrats dedicated to keeping the last administration’s legacy alive, adding that it was not easy to dismantle an army of international lobbyists for radical sexuality, abortion, and other extreme social policies and that President Trump’s White House is determined to keep trying.
Mr. Perkins further wrote that Barack Obama’s efforts to radicalize other nations were so offensive that citizens of other nations openly celebrated when Donald Trump was elected. Like dozens of other countries on the receiving end of the President’s extreme social agenda, people in the Caribbean were under enormous pressure from what he called the bullies at the US State Department to abandon ship on their traditional Christian beliefs.
Mr. Perkins went on to write that sometimes that harassment came in the form of financial blackmail, threatening foreign aid if the leaders didn’t comply. Other times, it came in the form of publicly degrading locals’ beliefs about the family. But no matter how it arrived, the result was always the same: outrage that the United States, of all countries, should be brow beating the world into submission on issues that are still fiercely controversial in most of the world.
Mr. Perkins gave an example that, in 2017, shortly after he took office, Donald Trump received a letter from hundreds of pastors and church leaders in the Caribbean urging him to chart a new course for U.S. Relations, one that doesn’t include an obvious disrespect for other nations’ values.
“It’s time, the Evangelical Association of the Caribbean wrote to President Trump, for the White House to stop using the US’s State Department to impose their LGBT agenda on other countries. Gay rights,” they wrote, “are pre-empting human rights, such as freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience. We implore you urgently to review this matter, to revoke relevant executive orders and policies, and to thus to restore to ‘The City upon a Hill’ the bright beam that once shone from it.”
