Pick for religious- freedom post cheered
Groups say naming Brownback shows Trump is on their side, but LGBT advocates fret
For those who call themWASHINGTON selves advocates of religious freedom, President Trump’s appointment of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback to be ambassador- at- large for international religious freedom is a much- needed jolt from an administration that they feel has been otherwise sluggish to act on critical protections for people of faith.
If confirmed, Brownback will be the U. S. government’s representative on religious liberty abroad. He also has the task of advocating within the State Department for a greater focus on religious freedom, even at times when it might not run in lockstep with economic or military interests.
“You need somebody who feels it in his bones, and David Saperstein really did feel it in his bones, and so does Sam Brownback. This is why I’m grateful to President Trump, of whom I’ve been a ferocious critic,” said Robert George, former chairman of the independent U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which analyzes religious free- dom abroad and makes recommendations to the president, secretary of state and Congress. During his time in that role, George worked closely with Rabbi David Saperstein, who held the ambassador- at- large position most recently during the Obama administration.
Early in his presidency, Trump was reportedly considering an executive order that would scale back Obama- era protections for gays and lesbians, and religious freedom advocates pressed him to move forward. But Trump signed a version that critics — including George — felt didn’t go nearly far enough.
“I do not give the Trump administration high marks at all, so far, on religious freedom issues domestically,” he said. “Internationally I think it is too early to tell, but I’m hoping.”
“We think that President Trump made a great choice” in picking Brownback, said Emilie Kao, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“I think he’s almost made for the job, and the job was made for him, and he cares deeply, so I think it’s a perfect appointment,” former Virginia congressman Frank Wolf told USA TODAY.
Wolf introduced the International Religious Freedom Act, the law that created the ambassador- at- large position. Brownback, who was a senator in 1998 when it passed, was a key player in moving the legislation through the Senate.
Certain aspects of religious freedom domestically can be bitterly partisan, such as battles about whether faith groups can be ordered to provide birth control in employee health insurance plans. But internationally, religious freedom is an overwhelmingly bipartisan issue.
Saperstein told USA TODAY that the friction comes with “competing claims, moral claims, between religious- liberty rights and other civil rights — women’s rights and LGBT rights, in particular.”
He said domestic issues pale in comparison to the persecution happening abroad.
“I pray for the day that the struggles for the religious freedom on a global level will be about whether corporations have religious- freedom claims, whether clergy can use tax- deductible money to endorse candidates,” Saperstein said, noting that people around the world are subject to torture, prison and even death for their beliefs.
Despite the bipartisan support for the position, some worry that Brownback — who has been opposed to strengthening protections for the LGBT community — could take the post in the wrong direction.
“The position is obviously one that deals with religious discrimination and protecting people from religious persecution around the world, which ... also takes the form of anti- LGBT discrimination,” said David Stacy, the government affairs director for the LGBT advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign.