The Obama administration bluntly warned the world against gay and lesbian discrimination, declaring the U.S. will use foreign assistance as well as diplomacy to back its insistence that gay rights are fully equal to other basic human rights.

In unusually strong language, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton compared the struggle for gay equality to difficult passages toward women's rights and racial equality, and she said a country's cultural or religious traditions are no excuse for discrimination.

"Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," she said.

Clinton's audience included diplomats from Arab, African and other nations where homosexuality is criminalized or where brutality and discrimination against gay people is tolerated or encouraged.

She said nothing about consequences or penalties the U.S. might apply to nations it judges poor protectors of gay rights, but she spoke shortly after President Barack Obama directed the State Department and other agencies to make sure U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote gay rights.

Clinton named no countries with specifically poor records on gay rights, although the U.S. has already pointed to abuses against gays by such friends as Saudi Arabia.

"It should never be a crime to be gay," Clinton declared.

The Obama administration already supports the broad principles of equality Clinton articulated, but making those principles an explicit challenge to other nations is new. The White House said Tuesday's announcement marked the first U.S. government strategy to combat human rights abuses against gays and lesbians abroad.The order also directs U.S. agencies to use foreign assistance to protect human rights and advance non-discrimination and to work with international organizations to fight discrimination against gays and lesbians.

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