That was totally unnecessary. LOL
Trying to repress regurgitation!
Posted on 02/03/2006 5:42:28 PM PST by Indy Pendance
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is being asked to explain why the United States sided with Iran, Zimbabwe and other repressive regimes in excluding two gay rights groups from membership on a U.N. panel.
'I had hopes for better from you,' Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said in a letter to Rice this week.
Frank told Rice he was 'deeply troubled to learn that the U.S. Government, presumably at your direction, sided with some of the most undemocratic, anti-human rights regimes in the world' in voting against the two gay groups.
Rice has not yet responded, Frank said in an interview.
'To refuse them status, what else is it except an act of bigotry?' Frank said. Frank is openly homosexual.
Human Rights Watch, the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign and other gay rights organizations also complained in a letter to Rice shortly after the Jan. 23 membership vote for the U.N. Economic and Social Council.
The U.N. panel is a think tank of non-governmental agencies from around the world. The Brussels, Belgium-based International Lesbian and Gay Association sought inclusion in May, along with the Danish National Association of Gays and Lesbians. Nearly 3,000 organizations hold 'consultative status' with the body, meaning they can participate from within in discussions among United Nations member states.
The United States abstained on a vote that would have allowed the debate on the groups' inclusion to continue. It then voted to reject their applications.
According to Human Rights Watch, states that joined the United States in voting against the applications were Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Chile, France, Germany, Peru and Romania voted for inclusion. Colombia, India and Turkey abstained and the Ivory Coast was absent.
Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe are among nations regularly criticized by the State Department for repression and human rights abuses. The United States has also criticized China's human rights record, and made milder recent statements about the continuation of military rule in Pakistan and increasingly undemocratic moves by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez confirmed receipt of Frank's letter.
'We're working on providing a response in the near future,' he said. 'You can be sure that we're looking into this issue very carefully.' He would not comment further on the reason for the U.S. vote, or on whether it represents a change in policy.
In 2002 the United States voted to support the International Lesbian and Gay Association's request to have its status reviewed. U.S. officials have not explained the change.
'We hope you will provide the reasons for this reversal,' Human Rights Watch and about 40 other groups wrote to Rice. The letter asked whether it is now U.S. policy to oppose panel membership for any gay rights group.
The State Department documents abuses based on sexual orientation in annual country-by-country reports on human rights practices.
A report on Iran two years ago noted that Iranian law punishes homosexual conduct between men with the death penalty. Human Rights Watch said it has documented four cases of arrests, flogging or execution of gay men in Iran since 2003.
'We find it incomprehensible that the U.S. government would recognize these human rights abuses while denying the people subject to them the right to make their case, alongside other respected human rights organizations, before the U.N.,' the Jan. 25 Human Rights Watch letter said.
The groups noted that three other international gay rights organizations have pending applications before the U.N. Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC.
'We urge you to support these applications. In this week's vote, the U.S. ranged itself on the side of severely repressive governments. As U.S.-based organizations working in the fields of human rights and sexual rights, we are dismayed and we expect better,' the letter said.
You have freepmail
Why should our government EVER have to endorse or support the behavior of WILLFUL, LUSTFUL, MALE-ON-MALE or FEMALE-ON-FEMALE FORNICATION (otherwise known as homosexuality)?
Why would our government endorse a high-risk, disease-ridden lifestyle that has been widely documented to rampantly spread infectious disease?
Get a life....I mean wife, Barney.
That was totally unnecessary. LOL
Trying to repress regurgitation!
Yep, even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.
LOL -just being frank regarding what Frank holds important...
LOL!
Glad I wasn't drinking/eating anything when I read that, or I probably would've choked/spit it out. And that would've been a Bad Thing. (Besides, I attempt to imitate a fish often enough without help! :D)
~Moshi-chan
What's the difference between Barney Frank and Fenway Franks?
The buns they come in.
The U.N. has enough problems with the goat-lovers in its ranks. More trouble it doesn't need.
Gay Teens Executed in Iran: Disturbing Pictures[Update] slw0606 reports below in the thread, "One little known fact is these boys were 'accused' of raping a 13-year-old boy at knifepoint." I agree with slw06006 who writes, "However, I have my doubts about their actual crime. They may have been having consensual sex with this 13-year-old boy, if they did anything with him, and one can debate if that is a crime." Indeed, it seems odd that no one who has read the reports in Farsi has reported that detail of the story... The story is just too convenient. Indeed, as Doug Ireland suggests in the above linked blog, "The Iranian authorities are putting out a cover story that the two boys had participated in the rape of a 13-year-old, but OutRage affirms from its sources that this accusation is a smokescreen for inhuman conduct and is without foundation."
by DCDemocrat
Fri Jul 22, 2005
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