Former Vice President Joe Biden Joe BidenCast of 'Parks and Rec' reunite for virtual town hall to address Wisconsin voters Biden says Trump should step down over coronavirus response Biden tells CNN town hall that he has benefited from white privilege MORE delivered a sweeping rebuke of anti-LGBT discrimination on Wednesday, calling for greater international pressure on countries with harsh laws restricting and suppressing those communities.

"Progress doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because good people come together and demand change," Biden wrote in a op-ed for The Washington Post. "And any person of conscience, regardless of their religious or partisan beliefs, should be able to agree: Violence against any person, in any form, is intolerable."

"No one should be killed, tortured, assaulted or harassed because of who they are," he continued.

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Biden noted that while discrimination against the LGBT community in the U.S. is still alive, the country has ultimately made progress in its treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and he urged Americans to speak out against anti-LGBT discrimination in other countries.

"Countries such as Russia — where appalling reports recently surfaced that authorities in Chechnya were imprisoning and torturing individuals believed to be gay or bisexual — Uganda and Tanzania continue to be openly hostile to LGBT people, and their political leaders have used anti-American sentiment to fuel anti-LGBT hate," he wrote.

The U.S. government, Biden argued, could leverage foreign aid and diplomatic mechanisms to push countries to end discriminatory policies and practices.

Biden and former second lady Jill Biden launched the Biden Foundation earlier this year aimed at advancing causes important to the former vice president, including LGBT rights. Biden is set to receive the inaugural LGBT hero award at the Democratic National Committee’s annual LGBT Gala next month.

Speculation about Biden's political future swirled in 2015, before he ultimately announced that he would not launch a bid for president.

A poll released by the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling on Tuesday showed the former vice president leading President Trump in a hypothetical 2020 matchup.

But Biden, who would be 78 in 2020, ultimately shot down speculation that he was considering a presidential bid, saying at a Democratic Party dinner last month that he has no intention of running for president.