we really have a long way to go i for one will not give up the fight we all have a right to live a violence free life no matter who you love as long as they are over 18
This is actually extremely depressing. It signifies that even the UN isn't prepared to stand against the judicial murder of gay people, and that the global struggle against hatred isn't over. It's a timely reminder for those of us who live in relative safety and equality that we have brothers and sisters in other parts of the world who face the most acute and most severe persecution.
From an article posted on Raw Story - Uganda was among 79 countries that voted to remove the reference to sexual orientation from the resolution. Among the other countries were Afghanistan, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Most Western countries, including the US, voted in favor of keeping the reference to sexual orientation in place. Gee, why am I not shocked to see Uganda on that list? Seems as if they're gonna try and find a way to enact genocide to GLBT people anyway they can. If it wasn't through their ridiculous "Kill the gays" bill, they'll try to use the UN to "validate" it. Such ignorance. I wish countries that tried to prevent this could collectively get together and stop providing aid for those who would vote in favor of eliminating sexual orientation out of this legislation. But I'm not holding my breath. It would be interesting to see a full list of countries and how each of them voted.
Am I reading the wrong thing? I think that "discriminatory reasons on any basis." covers both sexual preference, political, or any other reasons not stated currently, or even stated currently. It should be the only term used! It's hardly a vote to kill homosexuals or adulterers - that's a scandalous headline, & either way, the UN is only condemning, neither suggesting, nor obligating its members take any preventitive action. More hot administrative hot air, & subtle wordplay methinks.
I never read it as a vote to kill homosexuals, I read it as saying that the UN no longer considers, by vote at least, that killing someone because they are homosexual is considered a condemnable action. So I don't consider it hot air, and everyone else understands the significance of this. It isn't anything having to do with legality, it's about the message it sends.
While it's terrible the amendment passed, it's not like having the word homosexual in there would've really stopped anything. I mean, come on, it's the UN. But then again I'm a cynic.
If it specifies racial, national, ethnic, religious, and linguistic reasons and omits homosexuality, I think the message is hardly subtle. They have an opportunity to send a better message than that.:frown1:
Except that neither Morroco nor Mali suggested that rewording because their intention was to include gay people aswell as other classes of people being discriminated against in this way. They reworded this in that way because they knew it was vague enough to allow many countries to continue the practice of executing homosexuals because homosexuality has no protection from discrimination in most of those countries and is not recognised as a grounds upon which it is possible to be discriminated against in them. Neither Morroco nor Mali has the death penalty for homosexuality themselves, but Morroco does have harsh prison sentences for it and homosexuality is illegal there, and they undoubtedly support other countries (especially other majority Muslim ones) executing homosexuals if they wish.
Sinfully, you will also find many "christian" African countries trying to murder homosexuals. We have had several threads monitoring their christian activities.
Oh no question Drifter, Uganda and Burundi are both majority Christian (theoretically anyway) and both have extremely harsh laws against homosexuality, and very notoriously Uganda intends to try to introduce the death penalty. My remarks weren't intended to mark out majority muslim countries (though as a general rule they are much harsher for homosexuals) merely the sympathy which Morroco and Mali as majority muslim countries themselves have for other majority muslim countries which have far harsher laws against homosexuality. :wink:
I have no problem saying that I think countries which have the death penalty for Homosexuality or which intend to introduce it should be required by the international community to drop these laws, and that we should use whatever leverage we have with them to achieve this. However in many cases these laws are part of a greater system in which other groups within these societies are persecuted, women and ethnic or religious minorties for instance, and I think the focus should be on attempting to effect wider change within these countries which would prevent the persecutions of all groups within them. On the other hand though I'm not comfortable with making some kinds of aid conditional, I don't think it's right to deny someone else the rudiments which would prevent their death (food, shelter, medicines etc) in order to force their government to change laws I do not agree with. If you mean development aid (rather than emergency aid) then I'm in sympathy with that though. Mind you how much developement aid does the world give to Iran? Or Saudi Arabia?
What if this is simply natures way, should we interfere? We interfered with Iraq as we meant good, however did it really turn out this way. Was the 3 trillion dollar war really worth it? What did it cost for America's strength and stance as a 'last hope'? What could have that money have done had we not gone to Iraq? I am not saying that aid can't do good, i'm only pondering that we may not know everything, we may not fully understand why the people at hand are in the situation that they may be, and as such, perhaps it's just for us to leave them to the ethics of nature. Besides for extreme situations, which could not be prevented such as floodings earth quakes and tsunamis, I don't really think that it is for us to interfeer (unless we could benefit too). As to Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia, well they are RESOURCE ECONOMIES, meaning that they simply succeed because they simply won the lottery by building their house on this black stuff we all can't get around. Why should you worry when you've got nothing to worry about. Some people just don't care, if it's about others, or if it's about themselves, they don't care about life, they are irresponsible by nature - i don't think that it is a good idea to hand any power to people with such attitudes. You are either responsible and respect the existance of others, or they won't(& shouldn't) respect your existence either. Doing so would be unjust and therefor wouldn't give you any reason to be any better, it would render you the slave. I object to being a slave.
The UN is a toothless organization in most every circumstance I can think of; it's just marginally better than The League Of Nations, which it replaced. UN resolutions without NATO's bite are simply symbolic. Of course, in this case the symbolism is ugly and hateful, but completely unsurprising to me. Any out-and-proud LGBT who isn't aware of the dangerously provocative nature of their identification really needs to put down the cocktail and take a look around. I believe that religion, in this case, is a red herring: China, the most populous nation on the planet, voted with Iran on this, and last I knew, it was officially an atheist state. Our little pockets of tolerance in the West should never be taken for granted, they are profoundly meaningful but hardly ubiquitous.