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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 22nd, 2010
The United Nations General Assembly yesterday succeeded in restoring “sexual orientation” to a resolution condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions. The category of sexual orientation had been removed last month as a result of an Arab and African proposal. Yesterday’s 93-55 vote (with 27 abstentions) approved an American proposal to reinsert “sexual orientation” back into the resolution. The resolution was then passed with 122 yes votes, none against and 59 abstentions.
The UN passes a resolution every two years condemning extrajudicial killings. The 2008 version included a reference to sexual orientation. Zimbabwe’s U.N. Ambassador Chitsaka Chipaziwa harshly condemned its re-insertion into the 2010 resolution:
We will not have it foisted on us,” he said. “We cannot accept this, especially if it entails accepting such practices as bestiality, pedophilia and those other practices many societies would find abhorrent in their value systems.
“In our view, what adult people do in their private capacity by mutual consent does not need agreement or rejection by governments, save where such practices are legally proscribed,” Chitsaka said.
Paul Canning, who has an extensiverundown of the vote, reports that one-third of African countries either supported the American proposal to reintroduce “sexual orientation” into the resolution or abstained from voting, representing a change from their votes last month removing the clause. He also notes that almost all of the Caribbean, including Jamaica, also changed their votes as well. Canning noted the Rwandan ambassador’s “yes” vote:
In the debate at the UN the most moving contribution was from the Rwandan delegate who said that a group does not need to be “legally defined” to be targeted for massacres and referenced his countries experience. “We can’t continue to hide our heads in the sand” he said.”These people have a right to life.”
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Jack
December 22nd, 2010
The sad thing is that the Bush Administration wouldn’t have lifted a finger to right this wrong. They would have been silent and very likely been an abstainer on the vote.
Graham
December 22nd, 2010
I bet the right-wingers who complain about “moral relativism” and the islamization of the west blah blah blah are actually going to take the side of the Muslim and African countries on this. They are the true moral relativists; they think human rights are relative to what your religion says about gender roles/sexuality. makes me barf.
Rossi
December 22nd, 2010
Typo in headline, s/b/ “Executions”
L. Junius Brutus
December 22nd, 2010
The UN just entered the 18th century.
L. Junius Brutus
December 22nd, 2010
By the way, these countries are perfectly fine with such killings:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Botswana, Brunei Dar-Sala, Burkina Faso, Burundi, China, Comoros, Congo, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saint Lucia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe
http://www.undispatch.com/the-55-most-anti-gay-countries-at-the-un
Franck
December 22nd, 2010
I see this time my country did not vote/was absent. Better than voting for last month’s amendment, I guess.
grantdale
December 22nd, 2010
Thanks for the update Jim.
It’s an (almost perfect) proxy for easily determining which societies are democratic and recognise core human rights, and those that are undemocratic, repressive, and controlling. There should not have been any opposition, about anyone for any reason, to seeing an end to extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions. Utterly beyond the pale, one would have hoped.
A concern, again, is that after umpteen hundreds of billions and umpteen thousands of deaths and an entire decade… what have we helped established in both Iraq and Afghanistan?
If that’s nation building in action, you can stuff it.
TampaZeke
December 26th, 2010
And after pushing to have the amendment reinserted the United States, as it always does, ABSTAINED from the vote.
Interesting how this fact is being reported by so few.
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