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Ear to the Ground

U.S. Refuses to Back U.N. Gay Rights Measure

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Posted on Dec 19, 2008
General Assembly
Flickr / Patrick Gruban

Diplomacy central: U.N.‘s General Assembly hall in New York City.

The issue of gay rights was not just front-and-center on a national scale in news and politics this week; it was also a topic of concern for the United Nations General Assembly. Unfortunately, the U.S. didn’t exactly blaze the trail for civil rights in that arena either.


The New York Times:

An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize pedophilia and other “deplorable acts.”

The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration “challenges existing human rights norms.”

The declaration, sponsored by France with broad support in Europe and Latin America, condemned human rights violations based on homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal declaration of human rights.

“How can we tolerate the fact that people are stoned, hanged, decapitated and tortured only because of their sexual orientation?” said Rama Yade, the French state secretary for human rights, noting that homosexuality is banned in nearly 80 countries and subject to the death penalty in at least six.

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By felicity, December 20, 2008 at 3:34 pm #

Didn’t the Supremes rule years ago that separate is not equal (thus spelling the end to {legal} school segregation?) It’s really time we chucked the Constitution and any and all rulings that have been made based on it and admitted to ourselves and the world that the rule of law in America is mere pretense.

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By KDelphi, December 20, 2008 at 2:08 pm #

Do you have some info. that the “new teams” would back this reaolution?

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By cyrena, December 20, 2008 at 9:50 am #

“The issue of gay rights was not just front-and-center on a national scale in news and politics this week; it was also a topic of concern for the United Nations General Assembly. Unfortunately, the U.S. didn’t exactly blaze the trail for civil rights in that arena either.”

~~~

The US hasn’t blazed the trail for civil rights in ANY area, on ANY civil or human rights issue in over 8 years!!

To summarize: for the past 8 years, the US regime in DC has either BLOCKED or refused to sign on to anything to do with the promotion of Civil or Human Rights at the International level. If I wasn’t so tired I’d list some of the most recent. The Rights of Indigenous Peoples comes to mind, but there have been others even since then. The US doesn’t sign on to anything that acknowledges and pledges to protect (by legal agreement) the rights of humans as individuals and as members of the human society.

Like the right not to be genocided, or the right not to be tortured, or the right to food, water, and housing, and the right not to be discriminated against, based on race, creed, sex, gender,political beliefs,disabilities, you know the rest.

And, anything that we MAY have been signed on to prior to 2001,has sure as hell been blown to hell since. This gangster regime has NEVER recognized our international obligations/universal commitments.

We’re just a rogue nation now, at least for the past 8 years. We’ve got another 4 weeks to go. At that point, the new Administration will most likely reverse this decision and sign-on to this UN declaration.

Still, the new teams have a lot of undoing to do.

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By KDelphi, December 20, 2008 at 4:48 am #

Bravo, US…we are on a human rights downware spiral. It will not stop.

Our allies must think we’re crazy…

For shame, US…lead , follow, or—just get out of the way, ok?

Preach tolerance—but dont practice it!Fine example we’re setting for theocracies—wait,are we a theocracy now? Has Pastor Warren deemed it so?

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