Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Gay rights in focus before UN vote

Jessica Stern, Director of Programs at The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, is quoted in an article published in The Washington Post on Sunday December 19th discussing a vote today at the UN.

According to Anita Snow of The Associated Press:

A culture war has broken out at the United Nations over whether gays should be singled out for the same protections as other minorities whose lives are threatened.

The battle will come to a head on Tuesday when the General Assembly votes to renew its routine condemnation of the unjustified killing of various categories of vulnerable people.

It specifies killings for racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons and includes refugees, indigenous people and other groups. But the resolution, because of a change promoted by Arab and African nations and approved at committee level, this time around drops "sexual orientation" and replaces it with "discriminatory reasons on any basis."

The U.S. government says that it is "incensed" at the change, as are the gay rights campaigners.


Please read Jessica Stern's comments in the full article: Gay rights in focus before UN vote

2 comments:

nina corvallo said...

Tema,
I was wondering if you have heard yet about my friend Jeremy's organization called www.allout.org?
After reading this post I thought you might find it of interest.
All Out just launched and needs help spreading the word.

Tema Stauffer said...

Thank you, Nina. I just looked at the website and I'll mention it to Jessica as it might be of interest to her and her organization.