And then there are the Republican contestants battling each other to see who can be Most Evil.
Starting point: the Secretary of State addressed delegates to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and
delivered what historians will one day look back upon as a monumental speech, in which she declared that the continuing oppression of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people is “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time.”
Sexual minorities, Clinton said, “are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join in the abuse.” She addressed the pernicious argument — common in Uganda and many other places — that homosexuality is “a Western invention,” plainly calling it a “human reality.” And she issued a challenge to a world in which more than 70 countries criminalize homosexuality: “It should never be a crime to be gay.” On the same day as Clinton’s speech, President Obama issued a directive instructing federal agencies to “ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.”
Well, the Republicans weren’t having that.
But this was too much for some of the Republican presidential contenders, most notably Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Condemning the abuse of gay people overseas, he said, constitutes “a war with people of faith in this country,” a “war on traditional American values,” he specified, that “must stop.”
I think that wins the Most Evil award, at least for today.