Trump appoints openly gay LGBT activist to director of intelligence agencies

President Donald Trump has tapped Richard Grenell, currently the United States ambassador to Germany, as acting director of National Intelligence, making him the first openly gay member of the White House Cabinet in history.

As intelligence head, Grenell will oversee the nation’s seventeen spy agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence arms of each branch of the U.S. military.

Grenell is an interesting hybrid: an out gay man loved by most conservative pundits and politicos, who at the same time is often the target of scorn by liberals, especially LGBT media and political organizations.

“He’s not necessarily popular with LGBTQ people — or women or Germans,” declared a commentary in The Advocate, soon after Grenell’s appointment was announced. “He denounced gay Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg for calling out Vice President Mike Pence’s anti-LGBTQ record” and said “the idea that Pence is homophobic is a ‘hoax.’”

The Advocate also noted that Grenell is “known for insulting powerful women, such as Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow, based on their appearance.”

The New York Times called Grenell “an acerbic combatant who throws regular punches at ‘fake news’ reporters and Mr. Trump’s opponents online.”

Despite having earned the ire of liberals and having amassed immense credibility in conservative circles — he is seen as being in the image and likeness of Donald J. Trump — some conservative Washington observers wonder whether Grenell might harbor a hidden allegiance to advancing an LGBT agenda. 

Grenell has worked for pro-life causes at the U.N., holds traditional conservative views on many issues, and says he wants Christian conscience rights protected, but he is also a self-described “gay Christian” who advocates for same-sex “marriage” and has decried the influence of “loud religious right activists” in the conservative coalition.

After leaving his position in the Bush administration as the United States’ United Nations spokesperson, he publicly condemned the Bush White House for opposing U.N. resolution urging the full acceptance of homosexuality. 

Evangelical leader Gary Bauer, now a member of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, said at the time that Grenell “is not weak on defense[.] ... Conservative pro-family leaders are disappointed because Grenell has been an outspoken advocate of redefining normal marriage.”

“Grenell has made a particular crusade of the marriage issue, with a kind of unhinged devotion that suggests a man with questionable judgment,” wrote the Witherspoon Institute’s Matthew J. Franck in a National Review piece. 

Franck worried that if Grenell were selected by Mitt Romney for an influential State Department posting, he might “pursue his passion for that same agenda.”

In 2019, Grenell was asked by President Trump to spearhead a global effort to get countries to end their criminalization of homosexuality.

While the effort was said to be narrowly focused on criminalization instead of pressuring countries to adopt policies such as same-sex “marriage,” that may be a misrepresentation.

In a video interview with a fellow gay, Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report, published this week, Grenell perhaps admitted that he might be seeking more than just the decriminalization of homosexuality: 

We’re making so much progress [with the decriminalization campaign].  Granted, this is going to be a long fight, trying to convince sixy-nine countries to do a change in domestic laws, to not criminalize homosexuality. 

Grenell did not stop there.  He added:

And that’s all this is is ‘step one,’ is just to work on criminalization. Others are working on steps two to twenty. Despite having earned the ire of liberals and having amassed immense credibility in conservative circles — he is seen as being in the image and likeness of Donald J. Trump — some conservative Washington observers wonder whether Grenell might harbor a hidden allegiance to advancing an LGBT agenda. 

Grenell has worked for pro-life causes at the U.N., holds traditional conservative views on many issues, and says he wants Christian conscience rights protected, but he is also a self-described “gay Christian” who advocates for same-sex “marriage” and has decried the influence of “loud religious right activists” in the conservative coalition.

After leaving his position in the Bush administration as the United States’ United Nations spokesperson, he publicly condemned the Bush White House for opposing U.N. resolution urging the full acceptance of homosexuality. 

Evangelical leader Gary Bauer, now a member of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, said at the time that Grenell “is not weak on defense[.] ... Conservative pro-family leaders are disappointed because Grenell has been an outspoken advocate of redefining normal marriage.”

“Grenell has made a particular crusade of the marriage issue, with a kind of unhinged devotion that suggests a man with questionable judgment,” wrote the Witherspoon Institute’s Matthew J. Franck in a National Review piece. 

Franck worried that if Grenell were selected by Mitt Romney for an influential State Department posting, he might “pursue his passion for that same agenda.”

In 2019, Grenell was asked by President Trump to spearhead a global effort to get countries to end their criminalization of homosexuality.

While the effort was said to be narrowly focused on criminalization instead of pressuring countries to adopt policies such as same-sex “marriage,” that may be a misrepresentation.

In a video interview with a fellow gay, Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report, published this week, Grenell perhaps admitted that he might be seeking more than just the decriminalization of homosexuality: 

We’re making so much progress [with the decriminalization campaign].  Granted, this is going to be a long fight, trying to convince sixy-nine countries to do a change in domestic laws, to not criminalize homosexuality. 

Grenell did not stop there.  He added:

And that’s all this is is ‘step one,’ is just to work on criminalization. Others are working on steps two to twenty.