FROM THE PRESIDENT'S KITCHEN TABLE

Dear Readers,   

Did you ever read The Ugly American? It tells the story of a State Department foreign service filled with venal and incompetent ambassadors and aides. They hold the people of other countries in contempt and present a truly ugly picture of America. Ironically, one of the few heroic characters in the book is literally ugly, while the “beautiful people” are selfish, vain, hypocritical, and stupid. The only good ambassador in the book ends up recalled by the administration, a victim of his political enemies. The book was written by two Foreign Service officers as an expose. It’s definitely worth reading.

If you want to see a State Department that could have been the model for the book, look to Obama and his incompetent Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, arguably the worst in history. The Obama/Clinton team is a disaster for nations worldwide. Let’s take Obama’s December elevation of “gay rights” to a foreign policy priority, including a reason for asylum. The writing was on the wall in September when Obama addressed the U.N. General Assembly saying, "No country should deny people their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere." Really? And what are the “rights” this administration is talking about? The right to marry someone of the same sex, to indoctrinate children in homosexual perversion, to serve openly in the military, to suppress the right to free speech of others, and the absolute right to buggery.

It’s bad enough that Obama is using the heavy hand of the federal bureaucracy to force acceptance of these bogus “rights” on America, but other countries are feeling the mailed fist as well. In a recent article, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America wrote about Obama’s attack on the values of Latin American countries through his temporary ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte. Aponte wrote an essay recently “conflating disapproval of homosexuality with ‘brutal hostility’ and ‘aggression’ by ‘those who promote hatred.’ It is Salvadorans’ ‘responsibility’ to become advocates for LGBT issues and ‘to inform our neighbors and friends about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender,’ she wrote. The OpEd ran in a major Salvadoran newspaper in June, igniting a firestorm by offended citizens.”

Wright went on to explain that, “More than three-dozen leaders in Latin American countries rebuked the ambassador….[for] ‘disregarding our profound Christian values, rooted in natural law,’ by trying to ‘impose . . . a new vision of foreign and bizarre values, completely alien to our moral fiber, intending to disguise this as ‘human rights’ with ‘an air of superiority.’ The only thing they agreed with, they stated, is that violence should be repudiated ‘just the same as against skinny, fat, tall or short” people.’”

But that wasn’t the end of the matter. Wright goes on to say, “The leaders also sent a letter to U.S. Senators protesting Aponte’s appointment. At a congressional hearing in December, Senator Jim DeMint read their complaint and criticized Aponte’s ‘presuming to represent the views of all Americans’ in her OpEd. ‘I would like to apologize to the Salvadoran people on behalf of the United States and reassure them that most Americans share their values,’ DeMint said.”

Salvadorans aren’t taking the Obama administration’s perverted diplomacy quietly. Responding to Aponte’s efforts, they launched a website exposing “Obama’s Corrupting Foreign Policies” and Latin America’s determination to oppose them. Wright described a letter printed in The Washington Times in which “Latin American leaders [warned] that the aggressive promotion of homosexual rights constitutes a ‘war on religion.’ The Obama administration has placed people in other countries ‘on the front lines,’ the letter said, and is ‘demeaning our culture and insulting our values.’ The leaders wrote, ‘We support the legitimate human rights of all our citizens. We do not support made up “homosexual rights.” We do not appreciate the ambassador from another country coming in and preaching to us. We intend to defend our moral values and preserve our families.’”

Thank God for these courageous Latin American leaders. Wouldn’t it be gratifying if we could find such defense of values among more bishops of the United States, so many of whom have supported the “civil rights” of gays to adopt and foster children? Sadly, many of our religious leaders are among the ugly Americans promoting corruption. Let us pray for their conversion.

Table of Contents