The Foreign Service Journal, June 2015

28 JUNE 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The progress of LGBT rights in Europe and the Americas has elicited a backlash in other parts of the world. Strong U.S. leadership can help reverse this alarming trend and mitigate the threat of widespread violence. BY R I CHMOND BLAKE Richmond Blake serves as a special assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democ- racy and Human Rights. In 2013, he received the State Department’s Human Rights and Democracy Achieve- ment Award for his work as a political officer in La Paz. The master’s thesis he co-authored, “Protecting Vulnerable LGBT Populations: An Opportunity for U.S. Global Leadership,” was awarded Harvard University’s top prize for graduate-level research in the field of human rights in 2011. T he violent extremist group that calls itself the Islamic State recently released a series of videos in which black-hooded men are seen push- ing victims from the top of high-rise buildings. The clips depict people gathering below to watch the victims, accused of being gay, fall to their deaths before maiming their corpses. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is not only under violent attack from this barbaric violent extremist group, but from various hate groups, vigilantes and governments around the world. Human rights organizations report that so far this year, scores of LGBT persons have been murdered or imprisoned simply because of who they are and whom they love. More than 75 countries outlaw homosexuality, and in at least seven of them, the penalty is death. The social and political success of the LGBT movement, notably in Europe and the Americas, has elicited a strong backlash in other parts of the world. A Pew Research Center survey reports that in many African and Middle Eastern coun - tries, more than nine in 10 people say they do not accept LGBT people as part of their society. Eager to win votes or to distract from corruption or other government failings, politicians often play to this popular homophobic and transphobic sentiment. This strategy has resulted in draconian new anti-LGBT laws and frequent arrests around the world, and it exacerbates a cultural climate that not Promoting an LGBT-Inclusive Human Rights Agenda FOCUS ON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION