Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dan Baer hosted an international web chat with embassies around the world yesterday to discuss and expand upon Hillary Clinton’s landmark commitment to advancing LGBT equality as part of America’s foreign policy objectives.

Baer reiterated the American government’s objection to Russia’s pending anti-gay propaganda bills — arguing that such measures violate international standards of freedom of expression and undermine the freedoms of society as a whole — and pledged to partner with different countries in expanding opportunities for gay and lesbian people. The State Department is also “in conversations right now about how best to engage the private sector” in other nations to take a bold stand for LGBT equality, he revealed.

“We will support and work with partners, those who are interested in having technical conversations about how you develop laws so that they are inclusive and nondiscriminatory,” Baer said and acknowledged that the United States must “lead by example” in recognizing the human rights of all people. Watch the conversation:

LGBT activists in the United Arab Emirates are fighting back against the country’s reliance on ex-gay therapy and hormonal treatments to “cure” homosexuals with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for nations around the world to treat gay rights as human rights. The latest ex-gay push in the UAE appeared in the form of a six-minute video tutorial, titled “Be Yourself,” in which masculine men are shown transforming an effeminate man by teaching him masculine gestures, cutting his nails and hair, and lowering his voice. Watch the clip:

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transexual Rights UAE penned a letter “detailing the continued persecution facing the gay and lesbian community in the Gulf emirate,” in December. UAE law bans “obscenity and homosexual activity” and suspected gays and lesbians can be imprisoned for up to 14 years, receive the death sentence for “consensual sodomy” or be subject “to a medical procedure with no scientific basis, just for expressing their innate, human tendencies that are protected under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the letter notes. It goes on to quote from Clinton’s landmark speech on LGBT rights before the U.N.: “On December 6th, 2011, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton pointed out a fact that has been confirmed by a vast majority of the international, scientific community: ‘Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality.’ She further articulated how ‘gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world.’”

The group’s founder, Abdullah, has condemned the video, noting, “It angers me no end, but it also saddens me, this video would have been devastating if my 16-year-old self had watched it.” The video “brought flashbacks to me how on endless hot Friday afternoons I was forced to observe how men interact, or how they drink coffee by my father, so that I should emulate to make him proud,” he said.

Christian and political leaders in the African nation of Zambia are speaking out against Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s global call to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. The Zambia Episcopal Conference, the Pentecostal Church’s Bishops’ Council of Zambia and the Zambia United Christian Action “said that it was unwise for the U.S. government to use its money to force other nations to permit ‘ungodly practices’ in their land” and insisted that “Donor aid should not be tied to promoting immorality”:

[T]he government’s information minister, Given Lubinda, assured that the country’s leaders would not bow to outside pressure to respect and tolerate homosexuality in the nation. He reminded western nations about the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Accra Agenda of Action, which guide development aid distribution and do not mention acceptance of same-sex marriage as the basis for offering aid to the poor nations. Rev. Gibson Nyirenda, spokesman for the Pentecostal bishops’ council, urged Zambia to reject any donor aid that comes with conditions.

“For us as a nation, we cannot go in that direction because it is indecent and can erode our morals as society. Let’s remain a Christian nation by ignoring such assistance,” Rev Nyirenda said.

Homosexuality is considered a felony in Zambia, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, although the country’s constitution does include a general non-discrimination clause and few have been prosecuted for the “crime.”

During her landmark speech in Geneva, Clinton specifically addressed the concerns of religions leaders. “For many of us, religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who we are as people,” she said. “And likewise, for most of us, the bonds of love and family that we forge are also vital sources of meaning and identity. And caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human. It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal and cut across all religions and cultures.”