After both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made impassioned speeches Tuesday urging gay rights abroad, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry issued a response decrying the "deeply objectionable" gay lifestyle.
"This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of faith in this country," Perry said in a statement. "Investing tax dollars promoting a lifestyle many Americas of faith find so deeply objectionable is wrong. President Obama has again mistaken America's tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles."
"This administration's war on traditional American values must stop," Perry said.
Obama announced a wide-ranging effort to use U.S. foreign aid to promote rights for gays and lesbians abroad on Tuesday. The president said the effort would include challenging attempts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality.
Tuesday's announcement marked the first U.S. government strategy to combat human rights abuses against gays and lesbians abroad, according to the White House. Obama called discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons a "global challenge."
Clinton also spoke out against discrimination of gays on Tuesday, comparing gay rights to both women's rights and civil rights.
"It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave," Clinton said. "It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished."