WASHINGTON, D.C., April 27, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — The Senate confirmed Mike Pompeo as the next U.S. Secretary of State, to the delight of social conservatives and the anger of pro-abortion voices.
The Senate voted 57-42 to confirm him Thursday, Fox News reported. The former Kansas Republican congressman and Donald Trump’s CIA director replaces former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who the president fired in March.
“We're always on the same wavelength,” Trump has said of Pompeo. “The relationship has always been very good. That's what I need as Secretary of State.”
During Pompeo’s time in Congress, he consistently received 100 percent scores from the National Right to Life Committee and 0 percent scores from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, a fact that groups on both sides seized upon.
“Mike Pompeo will make an outstanding Secretary of State. He is strongly pro-life and committed to upholding the dignity of every human being as America’s top diplomat,” Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser said.
She noted that the State Department influences abortion policy in multiple ways, including foreign funding of pro-abortion groups, defunding the pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund, and resisting international calls to identify abortion as a “human right.”
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins agreed. “FRC has no doubt that as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo will make international religious freedom a foreign policy priority,” he declared, “an issue that's especially important given how religious liberty is so intricately connected to the security and prosperity of nations themselves.”
NARAL, meanwhile, denounced Pompeo’s confirmation as a “dark day for women and girls across the world” due to his “clear and consistent record” of opposing abortion, including his belief that “there should be no exception for abortion even in cases of rape.”
Not to be outdone, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund issued a tweet accusing Pompeo of being “anti-LGBTQ” and “anti-Muslim” on top of being pro-life. “To the rest of the world, we apologize in advance,” the group said.
JUST IN: The Senate just confirmed Trump's ANTI-WOMEN, ANTI-LGBTQ, and ANTI-MUSLIM secretary of state pick Mike Pompeo as the nation's top diplomat.
To the rest of the world, we apologize in advance. pic.twitter.com/XjpSWVODi2
— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) April 26, 2018
Democrats such as Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, pressed Pompeo on his opposition to same-sex “marriage” during his confirmation hearings. The nominee told him “I continue to hold that view” while simultaneously assuring opponents that his “respect for every individual, regardless of sexual orientation, is the same.”
As for the anti-Muslim charge, Perkins’ statement quoted Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, head of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, as calling Democrats’ attacks on Pompeo and his group “a sad day in American discourse.”