The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is demanding answers after the State Department approved a grant to fund a dozen drag shows in Ecuador as part of its global cultural outreach program.
In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken made public Tuesday, Rep. Michael T. McCaul of Texas highlighted the recently awarded grant, totaling nearly $21,000, to Ecuador’s Abraham Lincoln North American Cultural Center to host 12 drag theater performances designed to “promote diversity and inclusion.” The award raises significant questions about the administration’s foreign policy objectives, Mr. McCaul said.
“It is difficult to imagine how the department determined that funding ‘drag theater performances’ would be a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars or consistent in any way with the program objectives outlined above,” Mr. McCaul wrote.
He is first in line to become chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee if Republicans win the House majority in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
The $20,600 award is part of a program designed to “support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics and by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the people and government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world,” the State Department filing says.
The project grant was funded on Sept. 30 and runs through August of next year. The office of the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs is administering the grant.
The drag show grant ignited a firestorm on Twitter after it was listed as required by law by the State Department at USASpending.gov.
“Of all the ways we spend money through the State Department, this has to be the dumbest idea possible,” one user wrote. “Keep drag shows in bars where they belong.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, has called for cuts to the State Department budget over the grants.
“Note to self: The Department of State has excess funds that need to be cut next year,” she said in a Twitter post.
The goal of the program is to “promote tolerance” and “provide new opportunities for LGBTQI+ Ecuadorians to express themselves freely and safely,” the State Department told the Washington Examiner.
The abbreviation LGBTQI+ refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people.
“LGBTQI+ people across the globe deserve to live in societies free from targeted violence and discrimination. Recent data suggest an alarming and deadly rise in violence against LGBTQI+ persons in Ecuador,” the State Department spokesperson said.
Mr. McCaul is questioning the State Department’s rationale and is demanding that the department hand over internal documents and communications related to the grant and give a staff-level briefing on how and why it was approved.
“To assist Congress in conducting its constitutional oversight responsibilities, please provide a staff-level briefing as soon as possible,” he wrote.“To assist Congress in conducting its constitutional oversight responsibilities, please provide a staff-level briefing as soon as possible,” he wrote.
Although the grant is the first reported use of taxpayer dollars to fund drag shows, it is far from the first time the State Department has ruffled feathers for promoting so-called “woke” policy abroad.
In the spring of last year, Mr. Blinken issued a decree authorizing diplomats worldwide to fly the rainbow pride flag outside of embassy consulates on the same flag pole as the American flag in June, which many countries recognize as gay pride month.
The authorization was a reversal of Trump administration policy, which had rejected requests to raise the flag during pride month.
Weeks after authorizing the hoisting of the rainbow flag, Mr. Blinken authorized all U.S. embassies and consulates to fly the Black Lives Matter flag on embassy flagpoles to commemorate Juneteenth.
U.S. diplomats were also “strongly encouraged” to use State Department resources “to promote policy objectives to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities,” according to a memo issued in May of last year.
The memo also encouraged diplomats to use “the term ’Black Lives Matter’ in messaging content, speeches, and other diplomatic engagements with foreign audiences to advance racial equity and access to justice on May 25 and beyond.”
The memo authorizing the Black Lives Matter flag prompted a backlash from House Republicans who introduced a measure in June 2021 that would prohibit political flags from being flown at U.S. embassies and consulates around the globe.
“It is inappropriate for President Biden and Secretary Blinken to authorize and encourage the display of inherently political flags that are in no way affiliated with the U.S. Government over American embassies overseas,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, New York Republican one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
Ms. Malliotakis noted that Black Lives Matter is an inherently political organization that promotes partisan demands on its website including defunding the police and passing “radical criminal justice reform legislation” on its website.
She said that it was “absolutely ridiculous that legislation is needed to correct his issue.”
This summer, the State Department again drew fire from Republicans after awarding $500,000 in grants to fund the promotion of the rights of atheists in the Near East and South-Central Asia.
The State Department said 2021 grans were designed to allow “members of minorities and marginalized groups — particularly atheists and nonbelievers.”
A State Department spokesperson said in an email that the $500,000 grant falls under provisions of the 2016 Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which states that the persecution of atheists and other nontheists “is often widespread, systematic and heinous.”
The spokesperson said the programs “never promote specific religious philosophies or doctrines” but instead “promote the rights of all people to live free from abuse or discrimination.”
But a group of House Republicans said the grants were designed to promote atheism, which they said “is an integral part of the belief system of Marxism and communism.
“It is one thing for the [State] Department to be tolerant and respectful of a wide range of belief systems, and to encourage governments to respect the religious freedom interests of their citizens,” a group of 14 lawmakers said in a letter to Mr. Blinken led by Rep. Jim Banks, Indiana Republican. “It is quite another for the United States government to work actively to empower atheists, humanists, non-practicing and non-affiliated in public decision-making.”
Still, the State Department shows no signs of being deterred by Republican bluster over its promotion of liberal ideology abroad.
On Tuesday, Fox News uncovered that a State Department-funded media ethics organization in Sri Lanka has launched a campaign to teach journalists to avoid “binary-gendered language.”
The Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka, or MEND, which has received close to $8 million from the United States Agency for International Development, published a series of presentations related to gender and LGBTQ issues in the past several weeks.
A USAID spokesperson told Fox News that MEND “works to improve media organizations’ internal management and operations; strengthen journalists’ capacity to provide informed, impartial and ethical reporting on key policy issues; and help the media to serve as a forum for national dialogue.”
Earlier this month, USAID promoted a MEND presentation on gender roles on its official Twitter account.
“Want to understand how girls and boys are often forced into gender-specific roles?” the post reads before linking to MEND’s “What are Gender Roles?” series.
Mark A. Kellner contributed to this story.
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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