Rand Paul: “No Aid Should Go To Countries That Legally Discriminate Against Women, Christians”

At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today on global violence against women, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said America’s “job as the powerful, is to use our might to speak for those who cannot whether that is the bully pulpit, our foreign aid, our State Department, our immigration policy, or our trade policy, all avenues should be open to us in solving this worldwide problem.”

“The U.S. taxpayer has forked over billions of dollars to the Pakistani government, which condones the persecution of Christians,” Paul said. “Many countries that receive U.S. foreign aid have laws that officially discriminate against Christians. Persecution of women is wrong. Persecution of Christians is wrong. Persecution of women or Christians in the name of religion must be stood up to. American power, if it is to have value in the world, must be used as a force against persecution. Our aid money, for example, should never go to countries that persecute women or Christians, not one dime. But today, it does.”

Rand Paul didn’t pull any punches in his opening remarks. He took the opportunity to call out his Democratic colleagues for their unwillingness to add conditions to foreign aid; conditions that would force those countries that accept American tax dollars to also support women and Christians’ freedoms and basic human rights.

“Some say our foreign aid protects American power. These same people, however, resist attaching conditions to foreign aid. Why would we send aid to countries whose laws punish the free exercise of religion? I believe no aid should go to countries that legally discriminate against women or Christians. We are being taxed to send money to countries that are not only intolerant of Christians, but openly hostile. Christians are imprisoned and threatened with death for their beliefs.”

Senator Rand Paul’s remarks today should but probably won’t be celebrated by many liberals. Leftists, sadly, only seek to cast all conservatives and Republicans as anti-female Bible thumpers, perpetuating a “war against women.”

And Paul’s comments in today’s hearing go against that political narrative.