Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, hosted a conference call attended by several members of the religious right and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last Thursday. Pompeo told the pastors he’s working on two new projects, one involving the ongoing international conferences where he’s promoted worldwide religious liberty to high-level officials.
The other project, The Commission on Unalienable Rights, is currently worrying some civil rights advocates, Right Wing Watch reports. The Commission has curried plenty of favor among anti-LGBTQ religious-rights organizations that were vocal in their opposition to efforts by the Obama administration to protect LGBTQ human rights around the world.
Pompeo took the time to reassure FRC pastors that the commission plans to limit “human rights inflation,” a term sometimes used by conservatives to describe restrict the recognition of LGBTQ rights.
During the conference call, Pompeo said some things that aren’t part of the inherent dignity of being a human being became rights,” and he wants to change this. It’s also why the commission was created, Pompeo said. He noted that it will “study this, review this, and with the mission set to say, what are those unalienable rights?” he said during the call.
What are the set of God-given rights that every human being possesses by nature of their humanness? So, by middle of May or first of June, we will have that report come back. And I think it will return America’s understanding of human rights—at least at the State Department, I hope more broadly—back to the fundamental moorings of the Judeo-Christian tradition on which this country was founded, to take this idea of rights and human rights back to the foundational ideas that have made this civilization, this country here, so unique and so special. I’m really looking forward to having that report complete and then sharing that with my team and with the world.
Pompeo pointed out that he’s used his role as Secretary of State to profess his Christianity to other world leaders.
I’ve been unabashed in my role as Secretary of State to talk about the fact that I swore an oath to the Constitution, but that my first calling is to my Savior. And I’ve made that something that I tell world leaders, whether I’m with President Sisi in Egypt or whomever, whatever faith they may be of or of no faith. And we’ve watched some of us be called out for that, to think that, to say that we don’t care about science, that we don’t care about the rule of law, all the things that I know we all care so deeply about.
