Mike Pence, Donald Trump's running
mate, opposed a proposed bill in 2009 that sought to promote gay
rights abroad.
Pence served in the House of
Representatives for ten years prior to being elected governor of
Indiana.
According to the
Washington
Blade, Pence opposed a bill that sought to extend benefits to
the partners of gay employees at the State Department. The House
draft of the 2010-2011 Foreign Relations Authorization Act also
required the agency to report attacks on the LGBT community and to
“encourage the governments of other countries to reform or appeal
laws of such countries criminalizing homosexuality or consensual
homosexual conduct.”
While the measure failed, Pence backed
an amendment that sought to delete the bill's pro-gay language.
Then-Representative Pence said that the
proposal was unworkable because it would “tie the hands” of
American diplomats by “mandating that they make sexual orientation
a foreign policy priority regardless of other national security
considerations.”
He added that he's opposed to laws that
criminalize sex between consenting adults of the same sex.
Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
extended some benefits to gay employees in the State Department
working abroad in 2009. During her tenure at the department, Clinton
supported numerous LGBT initiatives.
Brandon Lorenz, a spokesperson for the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights
advocate, told the paper that while Pence worked “to undermine
LGBTQ equality abroad in Congress” Clinton, as secretary of state,
“went before the international community to declare that 'gay
rights are human rights,' launched the Global Equality Fund and
pioneered the first-ever UN resolution protecting LGBTQ people.”