It didn’t make a huge news splash, but on June 17 the United Nations scored a first of sorts when its so-called “Human Rights” Council went to bat for oppressed homosexuals the world over, passing a resolution “seeking a study to document discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons,” reported UPI News.
Saying a mouthful, a UN press release explained that the study would seek to document “discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, in all regions of the world, and how international human rights law could be used to end violence and related human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
President Obama, who has been aggressively courting the homosexual vote as he gears up for reelection, called the move by the world body “a significant milestone in the long struggle for equality, and the beginning of a universal recognition that LGBT persons are endowed with the same inalienable rights — and entitled to the same protections — as all human beings.”
While refusing to acknowledge that those “inalienable rights” come ultimately from God, not a global governing entity, the President nonetheless declared that the United States “stands proudly with those nations that are standing up to intolerance, discrimination, and homophobia.”
Homosexuals, whom the President was careful to refer to repeatedly as “LGBT persons,” are entitled via UN enforcement “to equal treatment, equal protection, and the dignity that comes with being full members of our diverse societies,” he explained with all due compassion. Mr. Obama looked forward to that day when, global law fully trumping national sovereignty, the “United Nations begins to codify and enshrine the promise of equality for LGBT persons, [and] the world becomes a safer, more respectful, and more humane place for all people.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took her own turn at applauding the largely meaningless non-binding resolution, decrying that, the world over, “people face human rights abuses and violations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, rape, criminal sanctions, and killing.”
Mrs. Clinton declared that the UN document “represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love.”
The past and potentially future Democratic presidential candidate said that homosexuals “cannot be excluded from protection simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” and promised that, under the UN banner the “United States will continue to stand up for human rights wherever there is inequality and we will seek more commitments from countries to join this important resolution.”
AFP News reported that while African and Arab nations “vehemently opposed” the non-binding resolution (with China, Zambia, and Burkina Faso abstaining from the vote), “U.S. diplomats” glowingly explained that the document “expands the concept of universal human rights in a new direction, helping to establish a new standard on issues that have been taboo in many parts of the world.”
Eileen Donahue, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council, was particularly excited about the resolution, noting that it represented “the first internationally recognized form of protection for lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual people. It is now on the map as a legitimate topic for those concerned about human rights to be raising and reaffirming internationally. And we think this is a game changer in terms of changing the culture, at least on the Human Rights Council, for protection of LGBT people.”
South Africa sponsored the resolution, which found its support from (in addition to the United States) such nations as Britain, France, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea. Among the nations voting against the resolution were Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
