In May of 2019, the U.S. State Department, then led Mike Pompeo, announced the formation of a “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” The goal, as introduced, was to “provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”

That word “natural” was basically Christianese for anti-LGBTQ and anti-women policies. As conservatives have used it in the past, bills protecting “natural law and natural rights” have included blocking trans people from serving in the military, opposing marriage equality, and preventing women from controlling their own bodies...

...Yesterday, however, during a speech marking the release of reports on Human Rights Practices, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken noted that Pompeo’s committee had been disbanded.