https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate-democrats-advocacy-groups-seek-to-abolish-trump-administrations-commission-on-unalienable-rights
Senate Democrats, a coalition of advocacy organizations, and over a hundred Catholic theologians are urging the Trump administration to disband its Commission on Unalienable Rights.
Three letters, which accuse the administration of threatening the rights of women and LGBT citizens in the name of religious liberty, were sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Tuesday, according to NBC News. The lawmakers and advocacy groups want Pompeo to focus the State Department on human rights abuses overseas.
“Instead of condemning gross human rights violators, President Trump has fawned over Kim Jong Un, embraced Vladimir Putin, praised Rodrigo Duterte, looked the other way as Xi Jinping imprisons millions, and covered up for Mohammed bin Salman,” the letter from Senate Democrats read.
Twenty-two senators signed the letter, including presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Kirsten Gillibrand. The group, led by Sen. Bob Menendez, said the commission was “simply an Orwellian twist to defend the indefensible.”
House Democrats sent a similar letter last week.
Pompeo launched the Commission on Unalienable Rights earlier this month. It will seek to answer what a human right is, where they come from, and how America’s founding principles prescribe natural law and natural rights.
A second letter, signed by 178 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, takes aim at the “deeply troubling positions” of the committee’s 10 members.
“The Commission’s chair and members are overwhelmingly clergy or scholars known for extreme positions opposing LGBTQI and reproductive rights, and some have taken public stances in support of indefensible human rights violations,” their letter to Pompeo reads.
The coalition urges Pompeo to disband the commission and redirect it’s resources to address the “treatment of asylum seekers and administration rhetoric and policy supportive of some of the world’s leading human rights violators.”
Other signatories include former ambassadors, state department officials and Susan Rice, who was President Barack Obama’s national security adviser.
More than 110 Catholic leaders sent a third letter to Pompeo, asking him to immediately dismantle the commission. According to NBC News, they are concerned that the commission will downplay the needs of the poor, immigrants, and refugees.
The State Department has yet to comment on the letters or the future of the commission.
POTUS struck a nerve with this one!