WASHINGTON — Robert George, the co-founder and driving force behind the National Organization For Marriage, has been appointed Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
George, who was elected chairman on Tuesday, was first appointed to the Commission in 2012 by U.S. House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), and is serving his first term as a Commissioner.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government commission created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The USCIRF’s principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress. Its original intention was to protect Christians around the world.
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While the announcement of George’s appointment and profile on the USCIRF’s website laud his academic and profession credits, both omit that he founded the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and that George drafted the Manhattan Declaration, a manifesto signed religious leaders that “promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience” against same-sex marriage legislation.
George once suggested that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shouldn’t be considered a Catholic because by signing marriage equality into law, “he has made it clear that he simply does not believe what Catholicism teaches about sexual morality and marriage.”
George co-authored the failed Federal Marriage Amendment in 2001, which would have written discrimination into the U.S. Constitution.
The USCIRF is funded entirely by the federal government on an annual basis and its staff members are government employees.
