How Trump and the Christian Right Saved LGBTI Human Rights

Cynthia Burack is Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Ohio State University. Her many books include Because We Are Human: Contesting US Support for Gender and Sexuality Human Rights Abroad, also published by SUNY Press.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Setting the Table for SOGI Human RightsFrom Obama to TrumpSOGI YesterdayThe PlayersDefining My TermsA Map of the Book1. The Christian Right as Anti-SOGI Interest GroupLosing in the US and Looking AbroadSOGI Human Rights vs. Religious FreedomWhat Lies BeneathThe Wages of Spin2. His Christian ConservativesMinisterial to Advance Religious Freedom, 2018Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, 2019Commission on Unalienable Rights, Part 1The 68th Annual National Prayer BreakfastCommission on Unalienable Rights, Part 23. The Human Rights of Tillerson and Pompeo: Who Was Minding the SOGI Store?Straight TalksSecretary TillersonSecretary PompeoDifferent Blokes for Different Folks4. On the Trail of SOGI in the Time of TrumpSOGI SupplyPublic DiplomacyDiplomacyForeign AssistanceAnd Yet SOGI Persists5. The US Abroad on SOGI Human Rights in the Time of TrumpSOGI DemandASOGIHROGood Enough QueersConclusion: More Thoughts Than PrayersOn Not Even TryingOn Knowing Your AudienceAppendix A: Secretary Rex Tillerson, "Remarks to US Department of State Employees"Appendix B: Secretary Mike Pompeo, "Being a Christian Leader"NotesIndex

"Burack's impressive book will be of great interest to scholars in the areas of human rights, religious freedom debates, and the ongoing political entanglement of Christian conservative elites, the Republican party, and Donald Trump … Burack highlights a motley collection of largely overlooked sources that prove indispensable to solving this religious freedom mystery." — Journal of Religion"Burack has provided scholars of religion and government with another valuable case study demonstrating the pitfalls of the religious right's alliance with the Republican Party." — Journal of Church and State"Burack's insight into the Christian conservative takeover of the Republican party, in state legislatures and presidencies, is profoundly disturbing. Trump made this takeover easier yet since one thing and one thing only defined who he considered qualified for top-level policy and cabinet positions: loyalty. Christian conservatives played that card easily and 'for the higher purposes' of carrying out God's plan on earth. More frightening is the belief that transforming our democracy into a theocracy is not enough. The 'end time' when believers will meet their savior must be global. The infiltration of international human rights policy by Christian conservative moral entrepreneurs is an essential, perhaps final, move—yet one that never materialized. This book methodically investigates the mystery of how and why US SOGI rights support survived under the Trump administration." — Franke Wilmer, author of Breaking Cycles of Violence in Israel and Palestine: Empathy and Peacemaking in the Middle East