Pompeo State Department seeks to redefine “human rights”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is leading a new “Unalienable Rights” commission to redefine the meaning of human rights in the international community, igniting worry among both LGBT+ and pro-choice advocates that this redefinition could come at the expense of women and sexual minorities.

“Every once in a while we need to step back and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been and whether we’re headed in the right direction,” said the Secretary of State. “I hope that the commission will revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to claim something is, in fact, a human right?”

The current purpose of the commission is to explore “our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.” The specific usage of “natural law and natural rights” is concerning many LGBT+ activists who understand the ways in which those terms are politically corrupted and weaponized in order to justify the erosion of LGBT+ protections under a human rights framework.

“Women’s rights or gay rights or healthcare rights, those are domestic issues,” a senior State Department official said, distinguishing them from unalienable rights. “At some point gay marriage might be considered one of those, but this is an issue that’s being worked out on a nation-state level.”

Read more at CBS News.

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