They used to call it “cultural imperialism.” Now they call it tolerance. The Barack Obama administration has spent $700 million since 2012 promoting the homosexuality agenda overseas — with more than half of that sum being spent in sub-Saharan Africa — and has nothing to show for it except more anti-homosexuality laws and ill will. Ah, tax money at work. Writes the New York Times:
Suspicious neighbors and landlords pry into their private lives. Blackmailers hunt for victims on the social media sites they use to meet others of the same sex. Police officers routinely stop them to search for incriminating images and chats on their cellphones.
Since an anti-gay law went into effect last year, many gay Nigerians say they have been subjected to new levels of harassment, even violence.
They blame the law, the authorities and broad social intolerance for their troubles. But they also blame an unwavering supporter whose commitment to their cause has been unquestioned and conspicuous across Africa: the United States government.
“The U.S. support is making matters worse,” said Mike, 24, a university student studying biology in Minna, a town in central Nigeria who asked that his full name not be used for his safety. “There’s more resistance now. It’s triggered people’s defense mechanism.”
… In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, the final passage of the 2014 law against homosexuality — which makes same-sex relationships punishable by 14 years in prison and makes it a crime to organize or participate in any type of gay meeting — is widely regarded by both supporters and opponents of gay rights as a reaction to American pressure on Nigeria and other African nations to embrace gay rights.
One African activist describes this as “blowback.” And Obama’s effort has been very aggressive, with the administration making the homosexuality agenda “an integral part of American foreign policy,” as the Times puts it, and tying development aid to acceptance of it.
For example, after Uganda enacted its tough 2014 anti-homosexuality law, Obama punished the nation by cutting or redirecting certain development funds. Yet homosexual behavior remains illegal in most African countries. Moreover, Russia also has also responded to Western efforts — by deciding in 2013 to ban pro-homosexuality propaganda.
The irony of this won’t be lost on students of history. In the days of the Soviet Union, the Marxists would seek to undermine target nations (e.g., the United States) via a process of “demoralization.” And part of this was, as Florida Democrat Representative A. S. Herlong, Jr. read into the congressional record in 1963, to “Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as ‘normal, natural, healthy’” (taken from ex-F.B.I. agent Cleon Skousen’s book The Naked Communist). Yet now the United States advances this goal while Russia resists it.
Of course, Obama’s homosexuality scheme isn’t without American critics. FrontPage Mag’s Daniel Greenfield wrote, wryly, that “apparently sub-Saharan Africa is in desperate need of Gay Pride Day. And somehow, Obama managed to blow through $350 million on gay rights groups in sub-Saharan Africa in two years. I don’t even understand how he managed that.” Yet it’s no mystery. It’s man’s nature to be even more willing to accept other people’s money than statists are to be generous with other people’s money. And much, if not most, of it likely disappeared into the pockets of corrupt African officials.
From wry to downright sarcastic brings us to American Thinker’s Ed Straker. He presented some discussion questions:
1) We have an enormous national debt of nearly 19 trillion dollars, such that it seems excessive to spend 700 million dollars on this subject. With such tremendous debt, do you think we can really justify spending more than 300 or 400 million dollars to promote gay sex in other countries?
2) Do you think this program was flawed to begin with, because there were no metrics taken — e.g., comparing the number of gay sex acts before and after the program began to measure its success?
3) Do you think there should be a greater focus on gay sex in Islamic countries?
Speaking of which, Nigeria, the focus of the Times piece, is bedeviled by a jihadist group — Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) — that seeks to make it a completely Islamic country. Previously (and still more commonly) known as Boko Haram and labeled the “world’s deadliest terror group” by The New American, the jihadists now have formal ties to Da’esh (ISIS) and commit unspeakable atrocities. Yet the Obama administration not only prioritizes fighting for homosexuality over fighting against ISWA, but is also accused of refusing to help defeat the group until Nigeria accepts the homosexuality agenda.
And the irony of this won’t be lost on students of current events. Hillary Clinton recently claimed that Donald Trump’s anti-jihadist rhetoric is being used by Da’esh in promotional videos. While her claim has been proven false, a different American political figure does make an appearance in the group’s propaganda. In the slickly made video found here, Da’esh encourages Western Muslims not to do the bidding of, among other sinners, “fornicators” — as it shows Bill Clinton’s picture.
This illustrates not just the Clintons’ hypocrisy and destructiveness to America’s image, but an even larger issue. Jihadists don’t hate our legitimate “liberty” but our licentiousness; they consider us ripe for the taking not because of a dearth of tolerance but our descent into turpitude. They’ve called us and would cast us as “the great Satan” — and our Great Sexual Heresy plays right into their hands.
As an example, consider author Justin Raimondo’s observation after the Supreme Court’s faux-marriage ruling in June: “The effect on our eternal ‘war on terrorism’ may be bigger than anyone now realizes. Obergefell v. Hodges hands ISIS a propaganda victory on a silver platter: they can now point to the ‘decadent’ West and raise the specter of America’s gay hordes descending on the Middle East to sodomize the pious into submission.” Note that Da’esh marked the court’s marriage ruling by throwing four homosexual men off a high-rise building’s roof, an incident reported by a Syrian Twitter user on the pro-faux-marriage hashtag #LoveWins.
While jihadist groups may demonize any non-Muslim leader, Trumpian tough talk will never earn the disdain engendered by Clintonian corruption. Just consider, for instance, that the name Boko Haram translates into “Western education is a sin.” And what about modern Western education, do you suppose, most inspires pious Muslims to rally to the jihadist cause?
Photo of gay demonstration in Africa: Samantha Marx
