We’ve written here before on sexual colonialism, the advancement of a libertine sexual ethic by the United States on nations around the world.
Our good friend Bob Osburn of The Wilberforce Academy just posted on this as well:
Every time I travel internationally (as I did recently to Northeast India), I’m also alerted to how others perceive US foreign policy. To see our government through others’ eyes does not contradict my patriotism as a US citizen, but makes me much more aware of how our policies can be perceived to harm or help others.
For example, one very troubling issue in US foreign policy concerns our State Department’s aggressive advocacy of the rights of gays and lesbians. Without question, homosexuals deserve fair and just treatment as fellow image-bearers of God. But US government policy, especially in view of the current administration’s open advocacy of same-sex marriage in the US, alienates and offends those abroad who may otherwise share our national commitments. Through their eyes, our call for treating homosexuals with dignity is a call to welcome immoral behavior and gay marriage. (Read Bob’s entire article.)
Bob links to a February 23, 2015 press statement from Secretary of State John Kerry in which he says: “Defending and promoting the human rights of LGBT persons is at the core of our commitment to advancing human rights globally.”
At the core?
I’m quite sure most Americans don’t realize that their government has made the promotion of a secular, libertine sexual ethic so central to its mission globally. Bob is exactly right. While leaders in our government may frame this as “defending and promoting basic human rights,” those in the receiving side of these policies in other nations often see it as a form of sexual colonialism—the imposition of a Western, secularized understanding of sexual identity on their societies.
– Scott Allen