LGBT: Is it really our job?

I just got a news alert from the Washington Post online, a publication that I was encouraged to begin reading as a part of a political science requirement during college. This most recent alert was a link to an article: "Obama orders U.S. diplomats to increase efforts to fight LGBT discrimination abroad." The article doesn't provide much commentary except to say that President Obama is strengthening his argument that he "has done more to end the ostracism experienced by the LGBT community, at home and abroad, than his predecessors."


I get that President Obama wants support in the next election, and I believe that violence against any person because of differences in belief or behavior is wrong. However, I have to ask, why is it our country's job, or our ambassadors' job, to take on this issue in other countries? Or, if we're going to talk about changing other countries' justice systems ("combat the criminalization"), why must we specify that those helped belong to the LGBT community? Is there some principle that gives us the right to interfere on this community's behalf instead of any other marginalized community?


In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that would probably be considered politically conservative, although I tend toward the libertarian viewpoint - our government has too many fingers in too many pies, and it really doesn't seem to be fixing much. If this is true in our own country, where the struggle with racial violence and extreme economic need is far from over, how much do we really believe we can - or should - do in other countries? And based on the American experience with government policies enforced through bureaucracy, why was this memo "immediately celebrated by gay and lesbian leaders" as if words on a paper (or email) are enough to begin real change?


It seems to me that although President Obama's memo may indicate a genuine desire to help oppressed and marginalized people "at home and abroad," it also reveals his assumption that the American people can be distracted. By a memo. Is this serious? Why is a memo to international ambassadors enough to be called a "political news alert"? Probably because reporting on the ABSOLUTE SILENCE surrounding so many other issues wouldn't be sensationalist enough for our news media. Maybe we should make it so. Make a noise for the problems that aren't trendy enough to make it on the evening news.


But that's a whole new set of soap-boxes. The questions I have are these: Are we convinced that it is our job to change the culture of other countries, and if so, why would we choose this one group instead of so many others? Can the American people really not see that words put on a page by a politician always have a double meaning? There is so much more that is always left unsaid.


Of all of the things that we could do, is this really our job?