JD Vance roadblocked dozens of US diplomats while he obsessed over their views on gay rights

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Before he was Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, JD Vance was known, at least in the State Department, for grilling nominees with a questionnaire about LGBTQ+ rights, Pride flags, diversity and inclusion, and other so-called “woke” issues,” part of a series of holds he placed on Biden nominees that delayed the confirmation of more than 30 diplomats to senior positions until this April.

“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,” reads one section of the questionnaire, which was obtained by The Washington Post. “If confirmed, how would you explain to them what the United States’ promoting ‘human rights for LGBTQ people’ would look like in their country?”

Another asks potenital nominees how they respond to a 2021 Biden administration directive allowing the State Department to fly the LGBTQ+ Pride flag over US embassies, after the Trump administration forbid the practice.

“Where, if anywhere, do you believe it is not appropriate to ‘celebrate and prominently support local and regional Pride celebrations’?” Vance asked.

The questionnaire is part of what critics say is Vance’s larger hostility towards LBGTQ+ people. The Ohio senator has introduced bills proposing to limit access to transgender healthcare and limit the ability to mark additional gender identities on US passports.

“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, told The Washington Post. “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.”

Vance has defended the questionnaire, whose existence was reported last summer by Politico, as a sensible set of questions about how US diplomats would balance progressive causes with local sensibilities.

“If you are injecting your own personal politics in a way that harms American national security and diplomacy, that’s not fine,” Vance told the outlet at the time. “The questions all try to get at those issues.”

“You can call it ‘extreme left’, ‘woke,’” he added. “To me it’s leaning toward cultural progressivism in a way that alienates half of our country and frankly it probably alienates about 80 percent of the countries these guys are going to represent us in front of.”

In response to the Post report on the content of the questionnaire, and a headline referring to it as evidence of his “anti-woke ideology,” Vance wrote, “They got me,” on X on Saturday.