The Obama administration has announced that “the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy, including the potent enticement of foreign aid, to promote gay rights around the world,” The New York Times reported yesterday, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton delivered a speech on the subject to the National Human Rights Council in Geneva, the subject matter of which her aides did not want to reveal beforehand for fear of offending more conservative countries in the council.

The announcement, it was feared, could “irritate” some U.S. allies “including countries like Turkey, where there have been reports of harassment, and Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is banned and sex between people of the same sex is punishable by death or flogging … (and women are banned from driving, by the way.)

But no one walked out and Clinton received a standing ovation.

Clinton has already ordered certain steps, like having American diplomats raise the issue when harassment or abuse occurs, and to require a record of such cases in the State Department’s Annual Human rights report. The announcement, the Times says, formalizes those steps.

“In countries “where people are jailed, beaten or executed for being gay,” she called on leaders to leap ahead of their constituents cultural or social mores, if necessary.” Gay people can and do commit crimes, she said, “but it should never be a crime to be gay.”