LGBTQI Persecution

CCR has long had a deep commitment to protecting members of LGBTQI communities from discrimination, censorship, violence, and persecution. Throughout the 1990s, the Center fought for the rights of gays and lesbians to serve in the Peace Corps, march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, receive funding from the National Endowment of the Arts, and promote safe sex and AIDS awareness, among other efforts. In recent years, we have also successfully fought on behalf of people who were forced to register as sex offenders as a result of convictions under homophobic sodomy laws. Our commitment to LGBTQI rights has taken us beyond our borders and back. The growing exportation of homophobic agendas by U.S. conservatives to other parts of the world has propelled efforts to criminalize LGBTQI people's very existence, along with all advocacy on their behalf, in countries like Uganda and Russia. Using the Alien Tort Statute, one of our signature legal strategies, CCR is suing anti-gay extremist Scott Lively, one of the key figures behind the persecution of LGBTQI Ugandans, on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda, and we are working with LGBTQI organizations and allies in multiple countries where LGBTQI people are under attack as a result of interference by U.S.-based extremists.