UN restores gay clause to killings resolution

[Keroppi]

UN restores gay clause to killings resolution

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12056608

UN member states have voted to restore a controversial reference to sexual orientation in a resolution against the unjustified killing of minority groups.

The clause had been removed after pressure from some Arab and African member states but the US had pushed to have it reinstated.

The General Assembly voted 93 in favour of the US proposal, with 55 countries voting against and 27 abstaining.

[Muffin]

[Janet_Girl]

for the win ...

Killing people because they were gay, it said, was not "culturally defensible, but criminal" and could not be "rationalised by diverse religious values or varying regional perspectives".

[spacial]

The wider implications of this episode are considerably more disturbing than the episode itself.

Part of the motivation, from the likes of Zimbabwe for example, seem to be:

"We will not have it foisted on us," he said, according to Reuters. "We cannot accept this, especially if it entails accepting such practices as bestiality, paedophilia and those other practices many societies would find abhorrent in their value systems.

Which would seem to be an encouragement of mob justice. While few can dispute the abhorrance of paedophilia, (sic), but retribution for any crime, however terrible it may seem, must be through properly constituted courts. Giving the green light to arbitary killing on such grounds would make murder legal. Julian Assange has been convienently fitted up with sex crimes.

The General Assembly passes resolutions condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years.

But what is, perhaps, even more disturbing is that a resolution, however disturbing, can be overturned in this way. Clearly the US carries considerable clout in the UN. Which begs the question, why are so many in the US so hostile to it?

It does suggest that, much of the US's protests and bleeting about the UN and how it behaves are a smoke screen to hide other intentions.

(Repeating a point previously made, several times, criticism of the US is to the ruling class there, not the country, its culture or its people).

[glendagladwitch]

Welcome news.   

[tekla]

criticism of the US is to the ruling class there, not the country, its culture or its people

Oh in this case I think you could go with all four.  Even the most liberal and progressive people agree with the conservatives on one thing, that the UN is pretty much useless.  No one really pays any attention to it.  I subscribe to numerous news services and here in Susan's is about the only place I ever hear about the UN.

[spacial]

criticism of the US is to the ruling class there, not the country, its culture or its people

Oh in this case I think you could go with all four.  Even the most liberal and progressive people agree with the conservatives on one thing, that the UN is pretty much useless.  No one really pays any attention to it.  I subscribe to numerous news services and here in Susan's is about the only place I ever hear about the UN.

Not quite.

The original criticism of the UN was because it was dominated by foreigners who didn't have the best intersts of the US at heart.

That led to the UN being sidelined and ridiculed.

Now, it seems, the US has had significant authority all along.

Here in Europe, many sections, which oppose the union are using a similar tactic toward the EU and especially the Parliment.

[tekla]

Well yeah, we love it up when it acts like our lapdog, ignore it otherwise.