Susan Rice: U.S. Must Be Global Leader In Gay Rights

White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice took time away from a variety of global security emergencies Tuesday to promote international gay rights, calling it “among the most challenging human rights issues we face.”

The president’s top national security aide told about 200 gay-rights activists that the Obama administration is fostering gay rights in the U.S. to serve as an example for the rest of the world. She said President Obama has ordered a diplomatic and financial effort to promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women around the world.

“Protecting and upholding human rights, especially for our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters, is work to which we are all called,” Ms. Rice said. “America’s support for LGBT rights is not just a national cause but it’s also a global enterprise.”

The Obama administration has made gay rights a centerpiece of its foreign policy. The U.S. imposed visa bans last week on Ugandan officials for corruption and for violating the rights of gay people, and canceled a military exercise due to the country’s anti-gay sex law. 

Uganda approved a law in February allowing possible life sentences for those convicted of engaging in gay sex.

Mr. Obama has carried the human rights message abroad, for example, urging leaders in Senegal last year to extend equal rights to gays and lesbians. Senegal’s president rejected Mr. Obama’s message, saying his country “still isn’t ready” to decriminalize homosexuality.

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