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BERLIN — The American ambassador to Germany plans to lead what his embassy said Wednesday was a new and “specific push” to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide.
The ambassador, Richard Grenell, rumored to be a candidate as the next American ambassador to the United Nations, invited about a dozen gay and transgender activists from around Europe to a dinner at his Berlin residence Tuesday night where the effort was discussed.
Guests from the Lithuanian Gay League posted a photo on its Twitter account showing two members posing with Mr. Grenell at the event, thanking him and calling on their country and other European Union members to support the effort, which the Lithuanian guests described as a “Global US campaign.”
The State Department in Washington has not announced a new global campaign for gay and transgender rights, raising questions about the official status of the ambassador’s plan. A department spokesman described the effort as a continuation of longstanding American policy.
The undertaking by Mr. Grenell, the most prominent openly gay diplomat in the Trump administration, was first reported by NBC News on Tuesday.
In recent public statements, Mr. Grenell has denounced Iran in particular, among the 71 countries where homosexuality is outlawed, for its persecution of gay people.
But in an interview with NBC, Mr. Grenell sought to portray the effort as much broader. “This is not just about Iran,” he said in the interview. “This is about 71 countries, and Iran is one of them.”
Mr. Grenell also declined in the interview to answer whether he was interested in the United Nations ambassador post, which has been vacant for nearly two months. “I serve at the pleasure of the president,” he told NBC.
The ambassador was traveling on Wednesday and was unavailable for comment. But the American Embassy in Berlin confirmed in a statement that he had met with the European gay and transgender rights activists and that Mr. Grenell had viewed the meeting as “the start of a specific push” to decriminalize homosexuality everywhere.
“We are working with European allies on a brand-new launch to decriminalize homosexuality,’’ Mr. Grenell told NBC, despite other issues that divide relations between Europe and the United States. He also said he had spoken to senators supportive of using American foreign aid as part of the effort, although he declined in the interview to specify which senators.
A number of American allies are among the nations that outlaw and severely penalize homosexuality, including Saudi Arabia, and it remained unclear how the effort led by Mr. Grenell would persuade the Saudis or others to end deep-seated discrimination.
Mr. Grenell told NBC that the activists, from Turkey, Ukraine, Bulgaria and other European countries, had joined him and an Iranian expatriate around a large table to discuss the effort. The ambassador said it would require “71 different strategies.”
Also unclear was whether the decriminalization effort was, in fact, new. A State Department spokesman in Washington, Robert Palladino, queried after the NBC report on the effort was broadcast, said: “This really is not a big policy departure. This is longstanding and it’s bipartisan.”
American-led diplomacy to promote gay and transgender rights internationally expanded under President Barack Obama, well before the Trump administration took office. The United Nations Human Rights Council passed its first resolution establishing L.G.B.T. rights as human rights in 2014.
David Pressman, a former American diplomat who is a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, who helped lead the Obama administration’s international L.G.B.T. rights strategy, said that despite his contacts among groups who work on such issues, he first heard about Mr. Grenell’s undertaking from news reports.
“What’s surprising is that no one who works these issues within the U.S. government appears to be aware of this effort,’’ Mr. Pressman said. “No one in the groups who have been engaged on these issues appears to be aware of this effort.”
Some leading European rights groups, including the Brussels-based ILGA-Europe, which represents L.G.B.T. people across the Continent, said they had not been invited to the dinner.
“We don’t know the plans or the content of the decriminalization campaign,” said Markus Ulrich, a spokesman for Germany’s largest gay and lesbian rights association, LSVD.
The Trump administration, wary of alienating evangelical conservative members of the president’s base, has a mixed record on L.G.B.T. rights. While Mr. Trump has said he “is fine” with a Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage is legal, the administration has taken steps to roll back civil rights for gay and transgender people. He also has reversed an Obama administration policy allowing transgender people to serve in the military.
American critics of Mr. Trump expressed skepticism of Mr. Grenell’s effort. Jeremy Kadden, senior international policy advocate at the Human Rights Campaign, an L.G.B.T. advocacy group in Washington, said that the administration had “consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality” of gay and transgender people.
“If this commitment is real, we have a lot of questions about their intentions and commitments, and are eager to see what proof and action will follow,” Mr. Kadden said in an emailed statement.
Melissa Eddy reported from Berlin, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Edward Wong and Lara Jakes contributed reporting from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 21, 2019, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Ambassador Leads Bid For Gay and Transgender Rights. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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