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The dangerous policy left behind for Trump Biden is a dilemma of territory. From imposing sanctions on countries hoping to negotiate with countries like China and Iran, Trump, like Morocco, has left behind a legacy that could be difficult for Biden to undo. .
In the case of religious freedom, the Trump administration has done everything from hosting international gatherings on the subject to directing more funding to foreign specialized religious groups. Such efforts have been strongly acknowledged by evangelical groups, which often work to protect vulnerable Christian minorities in places such as Iraq. Trump aides have also used religious freedom as a pretext for opposing people like China, while administration officials are also considering whether the mass detention of Uighur Muslims in Beijing would be called genocide.
Many in Biden’s orbit have emphasized religious freedom with ambiguity. It is not because they disagree with reason. Instead, they question whether the Trump team’s insistence on it is about politics or the use of religious freedom as a way to harm other rights, such as gay and lesbian people.
So far, Biden transition supporters have made no promises to activists urging them to backtrack or reject certain aspects of Trump’s religious freedom agenda. But Biden’s team seems to understand the sensitivity of the involvement, some advocates told Politico.
“I think they will think carefully,” said Rendria Presso, deputy director of Human Rights Watch and Washington director. “If there is a change, it will probably be part of a package – you will try to embed it in a comprehensive project.”
Rep. Serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights during the Obama administration. Tom Malinowski (DNJ) said Biden needed to be called a “strong and principled global human rights policy.”
“Our advocacy for religious freedom in the world will be more effective if it is not seen as a political pet project but as a political pet project and if the United States is not always seen as taking precedence over other core values it has won.” , ”Malinowski said.
Some leading rhetoricians, meanwhile, say the bidder should create a constitution of religious freedom that the Trump team is leaving behind.
Richard Land, chairman of the Southern Evangelical Seminar, said: “This is something that will reduce the opposition of the Evangelicals against him. If they accept this policy, they will feel more supportive.”
A Biden transition spokesman declined to comment on the story but hinted at Biden’s pledges to provide more resources to protect America’s faith-based communities against extremist violence.
Biden also issued a statement on Thursday in honor of Human Rights Day, in which he pledged to “put universal rights and strengthen democracy at the center of our efforts to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.”
Every presidential administration, Republican or Democrat, is facing charges of inconsistency on human rights. But the Trump administration is unusual in the degree to which it has given priority to one right, religious freedom, over others.
Among other things, Trump aides have: the launch of an annual cabinet to promote religious freedom; Created Alliance of countries Dedicated to the subject; And reformed the offices of special envoys for international religious freedom and countered terrorism in the State Department’s mandate constitution. The president, meanwhile, issued an executive order calling for greater emphasis on religious freedom in making diplomatic decisions. Department of State and U.S. Department of International Development Many political appointees of the administration in the agency have experience in the field of religious freedom.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also created the Commission on Unlawful Rights, a panel dedicated to reconsidering human rights policy. Pompeo used the panel’s report to declare that religious freedom, as well as the right to property, are “leading” human rights. He has given many lectures on the importance of Christianity in his life and called religious freedom America “first freedom.”
On the one hand, human rights advocates are happy that the administration is paying attention to the persecution of faith groups, many of which face serious situations.
While Trump himself generally shows indifference or hostility to human rights – he calls reporters “enemies of the people”, has banned citizens of many Muslim-majority countries from U.S. soil, and China has endorsed the treatment of Uighurs (he denies this). – Many of Trump’s supporters are behind the religious freedom agenda.
But rights activists suspect the motivations of Trump aides are not entirely pure.
Emphasis on religious freedom is, after all, a way to gain more access to the evangelical community, whose members are particularly concerned about the plight of foreign Christian minorities.
Pompeo, who is keen to run the White House, has seen an increase in his profile in evangelical Christian circles, in part due to his strong advocacy of religious freedom. Mike Pence, vice president of reports that Christian minorities have sought to prioritize sending aid, and rights officials who insist on religious freedom policies should also be surprisingly neutral.
Some rights activists also believe that Trump aides are prioritizing religious freedom in a long-term effort to impose policies that undermine the rights of LGBTQ people as well as women.
Mark Bromley, chairman of the Council for Global Equality, which advocates for LGBTQ rights, said they had essentially tried to make it a weapon, using it as a license to discriminate against certain communities.
The council and other rights organizations are calling on the Biden team to denounce the Polypina Commission on Unenallible Rights, which makes it clear that the US does not agree with the notion that rights are hierarchical with religious freedom at the top.
“We haven’t received any guarantees or anything like that, but talking to prospects about the transition, we understand they understand equity,” Bromley said, whose organization has sued Pompeo over the commission.
Trump’s ambassador for international religious freedom, Sam Brownback, agreed in an interview, but his aides claimed he was unavailable. Asked for comment, the state department said in a guilty statement to the unnamed official that “the right to freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental right from which the rights of others flow.”
“More religious freedom leads to other freedoms, including freedom of assembly and expression,” the statement said. “We believe that promoting and protecting religious freedom makes every citizen’s life better.”
Human rights activists have mixed views on which elements of Trump’s religious freedom agenda should be kept or granted.
For example, some predicted that the Biden administration would keep the annual cabinet on religious freedom, although perhaps other countries could organize it on a regular basis.
Some activists say that instead of cutting back on religious-freedom-related activities, the Biden team could find ways to emphasize other human rights issues that Trump’s study has found short-lived, such as freedom of the press or women’s rights. Biden has already promised to hold a “Summit for Democracy”, a forum in which these issues will be highlighted.
Some activists have argued that Brownback’s office fees as well as the envoy’s focus on anti-defense should be returned to the state government’s human rights bureau. He, as well as Biden in the name of leading that office, can send strong signals that one right will not be more valuable than another.
Conservatives also say they will watch Biden’s envoy election closely.
While the issue of religious freedom will drive a number of electronically meaningful evangelicals to support Biden, he said treating the subject with sensitivity and care could save some unnecessary headaches.
‘This is a very important issue for most evangelicals in the country,’ Land said. “They won’t keep quiet about it.”
