Former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann
said this week that she's hopeful President-elect Donald Trump will
end pro-LGBT policies at the State Department.
Bachmann made her comments Thursday
during an appearance on Washington Watch, a radio show hosted
by Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins. Last month,
Perkins
called on Trump to “ferret out” officials in the State Department
who support LGBT rights.
Bachmann, who says she has advised
Trump on foreign policy issues, lamented policies that tie some
foreign aid to LGBT rights, saying that Obama has brought “curses”
to the U.S. through the policy.
“How does the State Department, how
does the United States government bless or curse?” Bachmann
rhetorically asked Perkins. “You brought it up yourself with
the State Department, where we’ve seen such evil come out of our
State Department, unfortunately, where financial incentives are
withheld from countries unless they advance, for instance, the gay
agenda.”
“In a country that doesn’t believe
in the gay agenda but the Obama State Department has said, ‘You
have to have a gay pride parade. You have to make sure that you can
show us that ministers are marching in these gay pride parades.’
What? The U.S. government is telling another government that you have
to have gay pride parades? That’s unbelievable. You won’t get
your PEPFAR money, you won’t get your USAID money unless you follow
our radical social agenda?” she added.
Bachmann said that the U.S. should not
be wasting taxpayers money “to beat over the head other nations to
come into conformity with lifestyles and behaviors that we know can
be detrimental to people and that don’t advance the American
cause.”
She added that under Trump, the State
Department will “decouple” its mission from social issues.