JD Vance refused to certify U.S. foreign ambassadors because they weren’t anti-LGBTQ+ enough

Not long after coming to Washington last year as the junior Senator from Ohio, Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, J.D. Vance (R), embarked on a year-long effort to hold up State Department ambassadorial nominations based on his objections to their “woke” and pro-LGBTQ+ policy views.

In April last year, Vance sent a questionnaire to over 30 U.S. State Department ambassador nominees forcing them to explain in detail their views around issues including diversity, equity and inclusion measures at embassies, gender-neutral bathrooms, Pride flag displays and gender-affirming care for State Department employees.

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The memo obtained by the Washington Post reveals Vance’s antipathy to so-called “woke” ideology and his intensive efforts to root it out of public life and U.S. government policy at home and abroad.

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The effort held up dozens of nominations for more than a year. Vance does not serve on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.

“The publics of many of our allies, and those countries we seek to build stronger relationships with, have traditional Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu moral values,” Vance wrote in the questionnaire he provided to nominees. “If confirmed, how would you explain to them what the United States’ promoting ‘human rights for LGBTQ people’ would look like in their country?”

The questionnaire was based on goals outlined in the State Department’s 2022-2026 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Strategic Plan.

Vance’s memo also compelled nominees to explain their views on gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms in overseas facilities, how they would assess resources for gender dysphoria and gender transition care at posts for their employees and their dependents, and describe exactly “when and where raising the Progress flag is ‘appropriate and in line with local sensitivities.'”

After a year of grandstanding and negotiations with the State Department, Vance released his hold on all but two of the nominations in April. By then, he’d made his antagonism to LGBTQ+ rights and all things “woke” clear to allies and his opponents.

“The United States has a responsibility to champion human rights around the globe — and that includes the freedom for LGBTQ+ people to live and love without fear,” said Brandon Wolf, a spokesman with the Human Rights Campaign. “Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are cut from the same anti-LGBTQ+ cloth and have made clear that, should they get the keys to the Oval Office, they will demolish America’s values on the world stage.”

“It is not out of line to insist that ambassadors are professionally suited to focusing on the job at hand, as opposed to trying to push what, in most of these countries will be viewed as ultraradical social issues,” said Wade Miller, vice president of the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America. “Vance is in the upper tier of Republicans who have been talking about these issues and taking them on seriously.”

The Biden administration has vowed to push back on efforts to quash their message that “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights,” including a provision in a March spending bill passed by House Republicans to ban flying the Pride flag at U.S. embassies.

Said Vance following the Washington Post’s Friday publication of the questionnaire: “They got me.”

They got me pic.twitter.com/J2YYXDCoSz

— JD Vance (@JDVance1) July 20, 2024

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