WASHINGTON, D.C., April 23, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The openly gay acting director of National Intelligence for the U.S., Richard Grenell, is expanding his mandate from President Trump to eliminate the death penalty for and otherwise decriminalize being gay around the world to include the normalization of homosexuality in the vast array of spy agencies he oversees.
In February, President Donald Trump tapped Grenell — who was already serving as United States ambassador to Germany — for the position, making him the first openly gay member of a White House Cabinet in history. He now holds both offices concurrently.
As intelligence head, Grenell oversees the nation’s seventeen intelligence agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence arms of each branch of the U.S. military.
In 2019, Grenell was asked by President Trump to spearhead a global effort to get countries to end their criminalization of homosexuality.
That effort has now resulted in a policy that would limit the intelligence that U.S. spy agencies share with nations that continue to criminalize homosexuality in order to strong-arm them into conforming with Western norms.
According to multiple reports, the Trump White House is supportive of the initiative.
Sixty-nine countries currently criminalize homosexuality. Most are located in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Grenell is an interesting hybrid: an out gay man loved by most conservative pundits and politicos, who at the same time is often the target of scorn by liberals, especially LGBT media and political organizations.
He has worked for pro-life causes at the U.N., holds traditional conservative views on many issues, and says he wants Christian conscience rights protected, but he is also a self-described “gay Christian” who advocates for same-sex “marriage” and has decried the influence of “loud religious right activists” in the conservative coalition.
Stuart Milk is the nephew of Harvey Milk, the murdered San Francisco supervisor who made history in the 1970s as California’s first openly homosexual elected official. Stuart now heads the Harvey Milk Foundation. He told the New York Times that he recently held a session at the Pentagon for employees of the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and other agencies.
“We had a lot of people from the intelligence community at this listening event,” said Milk — “people from the N.S.A. and other intelligence branches, who were talking about how difficult it was, still to this day, to be L.G.B.T. in those branches of government.”
That era may soon be coming to an end.
In a letter sent last week to all the agencies under his auspices, Grenell seemed to demand the complete normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism within all Intelligence Community (I.C.) operations.
“While I will likely not be in this role for long, I plan to use this opportunity to drive lasting impact for the IC Pride community. And I am asking every member of the IC leadership team to join me,” wrote Grenell.
“I am committed to doing more to detect and respond to all discrimination and harassment within the workforce,” he contniued. “I expect every IC agency to ensure policies are specific and deliberate in protecting the LGBT workforce.”
His letter concluded:
Finally, I ask you to remember that June is Pride Month. Although this year’s IC Pride Summit has been postponed, I look forward to hosting members, allies, and friends of the IC’s LGBT community in-person when we return to the new normal after COVID-19.
In a separate letter that he sent to Adam Schiff this month, Grenell said, “Diversity of the IC workforce should always be celebrated, and I am proud that we increased diversity within the ODNI’s senior ranks, to include more women and members of the LGBT community.”
“Rick Grenell has proven in his work for the Trump administration that he is a gay activist first and a loyal Republican second,” Peter LaBarbera, founder and president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), told LifeSiteNews in February.
“He has made it his primary mission to work for the normalization of homosexuality worldwide, which would seem to be more of an Obama foreign policy goal than a Trump goal,” added the AFTAH head.