Marco Rubio and LGBTQI+ Human Rights

In his Senate confirmation hearing this week to serve as Secretary of State, Senator Rubio noted the immediate challenges facing the United States: “we must now confront the single greatest risk of geopolitical instability and generational global crisis in the lifetime of anyone alive here today.”

He also demonstrated that after years of service on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, he is immensely knowledgeable and perhaps uniquely adept at translating President-elect Trump’s “America First” policy and his outlandish foreign policy musings into nuanced observations about the challenges confronting the United States at a moment of global realignment.

As compared to other Cabinet nominees who are woefully unprepared for their posts — including the disheartening and damaging nomination of Pete Hegseth to serve as Defense Secretary — Senator Rubio is a competent nominee who cares about U.S. global leadership, as well as about the State Department itself and the diplomats and civil servants who serve there. CGE will look for opportunities to work with Secretary Rubio and his team to continue to advance the Biden Administration’s support for the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons, including on issues of decriminalization and violence prevention.

CGE has worked closely with Senator Rubio and his office on LGBTQI+ issues in the past, particularly in response to persecution in Russia and Chechnya. In that context, he co-sponsored a human rights resolution (S.Res. 211) and a letter during the first Trump Administration to call for greater attention to the persecution of LGBTQI+ persons in Chechnya.

Once he takes office, CGE also will remind Secretary Rubio — who will likely be one of the first Cabinet members to be confirmed on January 20 — of then-President Trump’s 2019 speech to the UN General Assembly, when he famously called on all nations to stop criminalizing homosexuality and pledged that his Administration would “stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people who live in countries that punish, jail, and execute individuals based upon sexual orientation.”

Since that pledge, U.S. State Department and other officials have continued to speak out forcefully against criminalization and have led international efforts to push back on the wave of re-criminalization efforts that seek to significantly increase penalties, including with new death penalties, for LGBTQI+ people in countries like Uganda. We look forward to working with Secretary Rubio and his team to advance that agenda — and to show that fundamental human rights for LGBTQI+ persons must never be a partisan issue.