February 22, 2006
United Nations: U.S. Aligned With Iran in Anti-Gay Vote
From Human Rights Watch:
In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a coalition of 40 organizations, led by the Human Rights Campaign, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called for an explanation of the vote which aligned the United States with governments that have long repressed the rights of sexual minorities.
In May 2005, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, which is based in Brussels, and the Danish gay rights group Landsforeningen for Bøsser og Lesbiske (LBL) applied for consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council. Consultative status is the only official means by which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world can influence and participate in discussions among member states at the United Nations. Nearly 3,000 groups enjoy this status.
States opposed to the two groups’ applications moved to have them summarily dismissed, an almost unprecedented move at the UN, where organizations are ordinarily allowed to state their cases. The U.S. abstained on a vote which would have allowed the debate to continue and the groups to be heard. It then voted to reject the applications.
More here.
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Comments
This finally confirms that USA is to the Christian world what Iran is to the Muslim world: an extremist fundamentalist country. *sigh*
Posted by: Martin-Éric | Feb 22, 2006 4:10:49 PM
Martin-Eric,
A sense of proportion might be useful here. The only reason the current administration can get away with votes like this is because so few people in the US pay attention to the UN. The situation is not the same as in Iran, where people like Ahmadinejad use deliberately provocative statements to disguise the essential bankruptcy of their domestic ideas. "Let them eat anti-Semitism" and "nuclear energy is our right" are the rallying cries of the mullahs, because they can't do anything about the fundamental problems in Iran, like unemployment and stultifying restrictions on personal freedom.
The situation in the US, lamentable as it is, is not the same. When the president starts issuing fatwas, then I'll get worried.
I would also argue that Saudi Arabia is substantially more fundamentalist than Iran. After all, Wahhabism and the more virulent strains of Salafism originated there, and saw the effects of takfiri Salafism today in the shrine bombing.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Feb 22, 2006 6:57:19 PM
OT/then OT (On Topic)
It is very convenient for the citizens of convenient socialist nations to bark their (who cares anyway?) condemnation for the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA everytime their unemployment checks are late.
After three Elections in Iraq and after Elections in Afghanistan, both following warfare, then the focus shifts to cartoons. Isn't that "anticlimatic?"
Of course the cartoons follow the lightening fast and vocal rise of the exceptionally vocal Iranian; Ahmadinejad. Don't forget Chavez and Hamas. These three figureheads, plus the cartoon moment, all come after the fact. After the heavy lifting is done physically through war and psychologically through war. Post Soviet World Order is established then the psychology collective shifts but it does not shift away from the newer established order.
(IMO, Internecine war, in Iraq, is irrelevant because it will not alter the democratic foundation which is firmly established in Iraq "now." It is also unimportant that Iraq is not an anal-retentive democracy micro-managed with psuedo egalitarianism.)
A nation has to have the long term economy to dictate warfare. It is a costly power play. Not having the economic power to influence through military endeavor does not make any other nation some egalitarian utopia of innocence. It just makes them less powerful. The convoluted inter-weaving of "morality" and "power struggle" is done by all but it is the identity found for the proletariat. The proletariat will always struggle for power through delusional subversive activity.
-0-
PERSONALLY; I would surely prefer that the US promote adoption instead of the punishing abortion issue. The latter issue was distinctly prominent in the recent US Supreme Court nominations as if the nation is balanced on that single phenomena/issue.
As far as the LGBT consultative status and the US (Rightwing Administration) showing distain for LGBT recognition; WHAT A SURPRISE! -Who are great vocal critics of the American Rightwing?-
Any of them here?:
"...In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a coalition of 40 organizations, led by the Human Rights Campaign, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called for an explanation..."
Do the math. Do more math. These organizations, political, self-appoint themselves as the "voice" of an entire identity. This is not unlike the cartoon hustling figureheads who devestate the image of Arab/Muslims who are lively people with interests far and away from the terror headlines.
I would much prefer the US premise it's LGBT position by stating; Lifestyle is not the issue but the g-dd-mn politics is; so screw them! BUT fantasy island was a sitcom...
It would feel better if the US would position itself as such.
NOW THE SERIOUS STUFF:
Who's going to photoshop the group photo from this initiative? Ahmadinejad would wear a radioactive-logo t-shirt while embracing Pres.Bush who is wearing an "I'm with him t-shirt" that points an arrow to Ahmadinejad. Both burn an effigy of something "gayish" while smiling like pals.
Posted by: Win2theEnd | Feb 23, 2006 12:29:13 AM
btw/ I did appreciate Hektor Bim's commentary. Unlike Iran; The US does not hang arbitrarily chosen homosexuals above the streets.
Quite the opposite actually; If you've ever been to the Castro district.
Posted by: Win2theEnd | Feb 23, 2006 12:33:18 AM
"The US does not hang arbitrarily chosen homosexuals above the streets" at this time. That could turn on a dime though, and it wasn't that long ago at all that people were being arrested for the crime of being gay in the US.
Waiting to worry until Bush issues fatwas could be a little late, but I know what you mean. No sense getting too excited.
Let's wait until they start building detention centers before we get upset.
Posted by: rollo | Feb 23, 2006 2:21:03 AM
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