Natural Law, Gay Rights, and the State Department ’s New Commission on Unalienable Rights

More on the State Department ’s new Commission on Unalienable Rights, about whichI wrote in this space on Friday. Aimed at providing Secretary Pompeo “with fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” the commission has raised several concerns. Chief among them is whether “natural law” is code, signaling that the department in futu re might “focus less on protecting women and LGBT people,” as put byPolitico, which broke the story on Thursday afternoon.  Giving weight to those concerns,ABC News late Friday reported that, according to a source familiar with the plans for the commission, Princeton ’s Robbie George has played a prominent role in its creation. I’ve known Prof. George for some time now. He’s a first-rate scholar and advocate for religious liberty. In fact, he spoke at Cato’s 2016conference on religious liberty, which we memorialized with our bookDeep Commitments. But as co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage and a prominent voice in Catholic circles, he has long argued against the gay-rights agenda, especially same-sex marriage.If this is the course the commission takes, this “fresh thinking about human rights” could seriously complicate the work of the department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, especially in countries with draconian anti-gay laws and practices. But at a theoretical level too, as no...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs