UN General Assembly: Summary execution of queers okay

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people were once again subject to the whims of homophobia and religious and cultural extremism this week, thanks to a United Nations vote that removed “sexual orientation” from a resolution that protects people from arbitrary executions. In other words, the UN General Assembly this week voted to allow LGBT people to be executed without cause.

According to the International Gay and Lesbians Human Rights Commission, the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee on Social, Cultural and Humanitarian issues removed “sexual orientation” from a resolution addressing extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions this past week in a vote that was overwhelming represented by a majority of African, Middle East and Carribean nations. For a UN committee that addresses human rights questions that affect people all over the world, by removing protections for LGBT persons from a category of arbitrary executions, belies the objective and purpose of a committee whose focus this year is “on the examination of human rights questions,” according to its website.

Whole article here

I think that any and all discussions of cultural relativism should be filtered through the above. Imagine, if you will, that you are an Ugandan queer. Which do you think would be more important to you, the cultural integrity of your nation (e.g. if the way they interpret Christianity is that queers should be killed, that's the culture) or your right to exist? Can we all, at minimum, agree that whatever we might think of the death penalty as punishment for crime (not a discussion I want to have right now) that people should not be subject to summary execution merely for being queer?

What's more, we cannot look to the West or the North or the First World as the problem here. The arguments made by the nation's themselves are that homosexuality is a violation of their local culture or an imposition of the West. Neither colonialism nor imperialism can explain this. This one has to be laid, firmly, at the feet of the nations that voted in favor of executing queer people.

Cheers
Aj

Yes, this would be where I have to kick cultural relatism to the curb (actually have some other areas in which I feel this way). I think your putting this at the feet of these nations is right on.

This is so very disturbing. Things like "without cause" or "at will" (such as in employment contracts) really mean "without rights" as far as I am concerned.

Now, given the how far the obsessional right-wing religious fanatics have worked their way into US culture at large (can only speak from this vantage point, but know others can from other countries), I see this as something they will use as further rationalization of their bigotry, fear and hatred of queer communities to romove any and all of the legal gains (though certainly not enough) that have been fought for for decades by activists.

I read this and see so much more loss for us in the future if we don't get a handle on just how serious this is and build coalitions politically and align as one unified force. This is from the United Nations!!

[Apocalipstic]

I think the United States of America has no credibility when we have gone against the UN on wars, secret prisons, breaking of the Geneva Convention, torture and not paying our dues. Not to mention thinking we run the world.

Many countries see this behavior of torture, wars for no reason and secret prisons as worse than executing queers.

I am very sad to see this happen, but not surprised.

And sosososososososo thankful that I do not live in Uganda.

For the US to have any sway over the UN, we have a ton of work to do as a nation, to regain ANY credibility.

[Julie]

I am pretty blown away by this. I had no idea, until I read your posting and read the Reuters reporting.

I work for a NGO UN organization. I am really upset. I am not sure how I am supposed to ever step foot into the UN again.

I have just written my director and am composing letters to those I know at the UN. Not that it will do any good...
Except to sign my name - This could be me! This could happen to ME!
WTF?

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by InfiniteFemme

I am pretty blown away by this. I had no idea, until I read your posting and read the Reuters reporting.

I work for a NGO UN organization. I am really upset. I am not sure how I am supposed to ever step foot into the UN again.I have just written my director and am composing letters to those I know at the UN. Not that it will do any good...
Except to sign my name - This could be me! This could happen to ME!
WTF?

Amazing... and goes directly to what this really means! Not just something "out there" happening to other people! If you can, let us know what response, if any, you receive.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by InfiniteFemme

I am pretty blown away by this. I had no idea, until I read your posting and read the Reuters reporting.

I work for a NGO UN organization. I am really upset. I am not sure how I am supposed to ever step foot into the UN again.

I have just written my director and am composing letters to those I know at the UN. Not that it will do any good...
Except to sign my name - This could be me! This could happen to ME!
WTF?

Did the USA actually vote for it?

Look at the things the US has done to many of the nations who voted against it. For 100's of years. Why should they respect our opinions?

We need to lead by example and make sure our allies are there for voting!

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Did the USA actually vote for it?

Look at the things the US has done to many of the nations who voted against it. For 100's of years. Why should they respect our opinions?

We need to lead by example and make sure our allies are there for voting!

It shouldn't matter what our opinions are on the matter. Each delegate, at the behest of and full knowledge of their foreign minister and head of government and/or head of state cast this vote themselves. They cast a vote knowing what they were voting for. They cast this vote knowing the implications and their national motivations for doing so. They cast a vote to remove queers from the umbrella of protection so that they need not worry about AI or the IRC or the UN looking for their shoulders should they decide to undertake an orgy of violence against queers in their nation. The United States didn't make them take that vote.

These are full moral agents from nations that are capable of acting as full moral agents. NOTHING we could ever say or do would make their vote okay in my book. Nothing. if we were bombing their nations randomly because it was Monday their vote would be immoral. If we yearly sent each nation our GDP as foreign aid, their vote would STILL be immoral. If we pretended that they didn't exist at all, their vote would remain immoral.

Cheers
Aj

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

It shouldn't matter what our opinions are on the matter. Each delegate, at the behest of and full knowledge of their foreign minister and head of government and/or head of state cast this vote themselves. They cast a vote knowing what they were voting for. They cast this vote knowing the implications and their national motivations for doing so. They cast a vote to remove queers from the umbrella of protection so that they need not worry about AI or the IRC or the UN looking for their shoulders should they decide to undertake an orgy of violence against queers in their nation. The United States didn't make them take that vote.

These are full moral agents from nations that are capable of acting as full moral agents. NOTHING we could ever say or do would make their vote okay in my book. Nothing. if we were bombing their nations randomly because it was Monday their vote would be immoral. If we yearly sent each nation our GDP as foreign aid, their vote would STILL be immoral. If we pretended that they didn't exist at all, their vote would remain immoral.

Cheers
Aj

I agree. It is horrible and imoral.

I just dont know how writing angry letters to US delegates is going to help anything.

[Glenn]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Did the USA actually vote for it?

Look at the things the US has done to many of the nations who voted against it. For 100's of years. Why should they respect our opinions?

We need to lead by example and make sure our allies are there for voting!

I thought I heard Hilary say that we with held our vote near the end. I just don't understand what the point is of a UN if everyone does'nt have to vote, or is too afraid to. Where was everyone else?

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by popcorninthesofa

I thought I heard Hilary say that we with held our vote near the end. I just don't understand what the point is of a UN if everyone does'nt have to vote, or is too afraid to. Where was everyone else?

We could ask the same of our Congress or of each of us. Where was everyone when it came time to vote?

I need to read up on when we voted and if we held off till the end...why.

Like anything else this is political and for some it is easier to not have an opinion, lest they be seen as Queer or liberal or something equally shocking. For some, it was not an important vote. Some may have passive agressively been trying to send the US a message to leave them alone.

The only way the UN was ever going to work the way we think it is supposed to, was for the US and the rest of the Security Council follow the rules and pay the dues and we have not. I think it was doomed to ever be what I want it to be when the League of Nations was shot down by Congress for sheer political reasons all those years ago.


I have a question. Why is our problem just with Queers being executed?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Did the USA actually vote for it?

Look at the things the US has done to many of the nations who voted against it. For 100's of years. Why should they respect our opinions?

We need to lead by example and make sure our allies are there for voting!

Actually, since the United States practices executions for criminals our delegation tends to abstain from votes regarding death penalty. (since typically these votes are in favor of executing people that the USA has no appetite for killing).

What do our actions have to do with this vote? Can you explain to me the causal chain that gets us from "In this year the United States did this action and so in 2010 the UN delegation from this nation voted in favor of executing queers"? I ask because I cannot get there. I do not see the path from, say, our overthrowing the government of Mosadech (sp) in Iran in the mid-50's to them executing queers. Let's say that we had spent the last 234 years safely ensconced in our borders--not intervening even in a case where American intervention was so obviously needed like, say, WW I and WW II. How do you think that the 79 nations that voted in favor of executing queers would have voted? Additionally, why do you think their votes would have been different?

[Jess]

My personal and political views on this are closely tied. It would make a stronger political and moral statement to the rest of the UN nations, if country's like the US would grant full equal human rights rather than issue any type of condemnation.

I agree with dreadgeek, in that I think the cultural beliefs and dogma of those nations are so deeply ingrained that with or without any Western presence in their country those notions of anti- homosexuality would still be intact.

Were we to step up to the plate, so to speak, and show that we not only don't agree with the right to execute based on sexual orientation, but that we further, view homosexuals as equal human beings with FULL rights, perhaps we could change their view without putting them on the defense.

Global politics are no different really than our personal politics. Just more people involved. The whole theory behind thinking globally and acting locally can be felt here.

What right does the US have to see these actions as barbaric ( which is how I see it, not from any statement made in the press), when we disallow the same group of citizens equal rights under and protected by the laws of our own country?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

I think the United States of America has no credibility when we have gone against the UN on wars, secret prisons, breaking of the Geneva Convention, torture and not paying our dues. Not to mention thinking we run the world.

Many countries see this behavior of torture, wars for no reason and secret prisons as worse than executing queers.

I am very sad to see this happen, but not surprised.

And sosososososososo thankful that I do not live in Uganda.

For the US to have any sway over the UN, we have a ton of work to do as a nation, to regain ANY credibility.

I'm sure that many nations do see it that way. I'm sure that there are plenty of nations--all the ones that voted to remove sexual orientation--that do not see any moral problem with execution of queers. I'm not talking about this from the point of view of "we're so great, they're so horrible". I'm talking about this from the point of view of *regardless* of our behavior, certain things are morally repugnant. Summary execution of people because they are different has got to be at the top of that list.

Was our invasion of Iraq justified? No. Does that mean that somehow, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was justified--even in a post hoc fashion? No, because wars of aggression are immoral--not because the United States does them but because anyone does them. I'm not surprised by this and you know I'm not a jingoistic, "America uber alles" but we in the West have *got* to get things back on an even ethical keel.

If the United States were, in fact, a Rawlsian utopia, acknowledged by all people as a place where unfairness cannot even be contemplated much less actually practiced it would not change the fact that this action at the UN is unjustifiable and an invitation to commit crimes against humanity. If the United States were no more advanced than it was in, say, 1900 this would still hold. The horrors visited upon Europe by the Germans and China and Korea by the Japanese during WWII were not diminished one bit by racial segregation in the United States. Were we right with our own people? Not by even the most generous definition but that doesn't mean that what the Germans or Japanese did was at all mitigated by our own not being right.

We, as Americans, exhibit a callousness to the plight of others every time we utter the words "well, we do this here so who are we to say that it's wrong when they do that there". I am willing to bet that every person living in a nation where the state kills queers would prefer to be someplace that doesn't happen--either there or here. We cannot wait for perfect justice to obtain here before we can be justified to be outraged at injustice someplace else. Firstly, it means that we will turn a consistent blind eye to injustice elsewhere and secondly, every excuse we make undercuts the moral force of our argument here.

If I could change one thing about where liberalism has gone these last 30 years it would be this: we lost sight of the fact that we were involved in a struggle that was not just political but moral. The movement for queer civil rights is a moral struggle with political dimensions, not a political struggle with an ancillary moral dimension. Because a queer in Uganda can be killed for being queer, I am Ugandan. Because a dissident in China can be imprisoned for speaking out against the government, I am Chinese. Because a journalist in Russia who writes an unfavorable story can be assassinated, I am Russian. Because an Afghani can be blown to bits by a drone, I am Afghani. Because an Egyptian can be killed for starting a political party, I am Egyptian. Wherever injustice is done and I am aware of it, I must stand up and be counted as being in the court of justice and not in the host of injustice. I must not make excuses for injustice there because of injustice here.

No nation, really, has credibility by the standards you mention above. Israel doesn't. The United Kingdom doesn't. France doesn't. Nor does Spain. Canada doesn't. Germany doesn't. Russia most certainly doesn't. Iran? nope. China? Not hardly. Pakistan? Not in the least bit. India? Nope. I suppose maybe Iceland or Greenland might but that's probably because I can't think of anything either nation has done recently.

Cheers
Aj

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I'm sure that many nations do see it that way. I'm sure that there are plenty of nations--all the ones that voted to remove sexual orientation--that do not see any moral problem with execution of queers. I'm not talking about this from the point of view of "we're so great, they're so horrible". I'm talking about this from the point of view of *regardless* of our behavior, certain things are morally repugnant. Summary execution of people because they are different has got to be at the top of that list.

Was our invasion of Iraq justified? No. Does that mean that somehow, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was justified--even in a post hoc fashion? No, because wars of aggression are immoral--not because the United States does them but because anyone does them. I'm not surprised by this and you know I'm not a jingoistic, "America uber alles" but we in the West have *got* to get things back on an even ethical keel.

If the United States were, in fact, a Rawlsian utopia, acknowledged by all people as a place where unfairness cannot even be contemplated much less actually practiced it would not change the fact that this action at the UN is unjustifiable and an invitation to commit crimes against humanity. If the United States were no more advanced than it was in, say, 1900 this would still hold. The horrors visited upon Europe by the Germans and China and Korea by the Japanese during WWII were not diminished one bit by racial segregation in the United States. Were we right with our own people? Not by even the most generous definition but that doesn't mean that what the Germans or Japanese did was at all mitigated by our own not being right.

We, as Americans, exhibit a callousness to the plight of others every time we utter the words "well, we do this here so who are we to say that it's wrong when they do that there". I am willing to bet that every person living in a nation where the state kills queers would prefer to be someplace that doesn't happen--either there or here. We cannot wait for perfect justice to obtain here before we can be justified to be outraged at injustice someplace else. Firstly, it means that we will turn a consistent blind eye to injustice elsewhere and secondly, every excuse we make undercuts the moral force of our argument here.

If I could change one thing about where liberalism has gone these last 30 years it would be this: we lost sight of the fact that we were involved in a struggle that was not just political but moral. The movement for queer civil rights is a moral struggle with political dimensions, not a political struggle with an ancillary moral dimension. Because a queer in Uganda can be killed for being queer, I am Ugandan. Because a dissident in China can be imprisoned for speaking out against the government, I am Chinese. Because a journalist in Russia who writes an unfavorable story can be assassinated, I am Russian. Because an Afghani can be blown to bits by a drone, I am Afghani. Because an Egyptian can be killed for starting a political party, I am Egyptian. Wherever injustice is done and I am aware of it, I must stand up and be counted as being in the court of justice and not in the host of injustice. I must not make excuses for injustice there because of injustice here.

No nation, really, has credibility by the standards you mention above. Israel doesn't. The United Kingdom doesn't. France doesn't. Nor does Spain. Canada doesn't. Germany doesn't. Russia most certainly doesn't. Iran? nope. China? Not hardly. Pakistan? Not in the least bit. India? Nope. I suppose maybe Iceland or Greenland might but that's probably because I can't think of anything either nation has done recently.

Cheers
Aj

I agree with you. It is repugnant. I am horrified.

This is a "yes...and"...answer

I just think that if we as voters stood on our government to respect and follow UN rulings no matter who our President is and if we were not as creepy as we are, and if we did not have a huge hand in the sad state many of the countries who voted for this horrible injustice are in, maybe the US would have had more sway with the voting Nations.

I hate it that this is going on, I hate the shape our own country is in. I grew up in a Fascist country and almost throw up every time I hear on this website "well thats what North Korea does" when discussing what is right and wrong...morally.

I guess I hate it most that my own country is not doing more, and that we have zero high ground clout to be able to say "executing ANYONE is morally wrong".

I want us to have never lied to the UN, to have made the original League of Nations work....etc etc. I know, I am too idealistic.

In conclusion I blame the US and the UK and France and Holland and the countries who in colonizing and making war for personal gain left and are leaving these countries looking for someone to blame for their problems. Queers are an easy target.

Who do we blame for ours?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

I
I want us to have never lied to the UN, to have made the original League of Nations work....etc etc. I know, I am too idealistic.

In conclusion I blame the US and the UK and France and Holland and the countries who in colonizing and making war for personal gain left and are leaving these countries looking for someone to blame for their problems. Queers are an easy target.

Who do we blame for ours?

I'm curious, when do these nations become full moral agents? When, in other words, can we hold them responsible for their actions instead of holding other nations--Western nations all--responsible. I know you do not intend this but what you are doing is making these nations children, poor little backwards brown and yellow people who, were it not for the intervention of Europeans, wouldn't even think of such a thing. Poppycock!

They aren't looking for queers as an excuse. Their *religion* teaches them that queers should be killed. Not colonialism or imperialism. Most of these nations threw off the shackles of empire four or more decades ago. At *some* point we have to start treating them as full moral agents.

These nations would have thought this up if they had *never* had contact with a Westerner. It is instructive to note that each of those nations has *also* voted against anything related to women's rights in the UN, claiming--of course--local cultural integrity. They didn't learn sexism and patriarchy from the colonial powers, that was in play when the Western navies first appeared on the horizon. I see no reason to believe that homophobia was something that imperialism brought to these nations.


Cheers
Aj

[Nat]

I am anti-death-penalty regardless, but the reason this specifically is concerning is because 79 countries voted to take "sexual orientation" out of a resolution regarding executions. "Sexual orientation" was added to the resolution in 2008, and now it's been taken out.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/u...ays-execution/

“This vote is a dangerous and disturbing development,” Cary Alan Johnson, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, said in a statement. "It essentially removes the important recognition of the particular vulnerability faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people -- a recognition that is crucial at a time when 76 countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, five consider it a capital crime, and countries like Uganda are considering adding the death penalty to their laws criminalizing homosexuality."

Johnson was referring to a bill introduced in Uganda's legislature last year that would mandate the death penalty for multiple acts of gay sex or for any gay person carrying HIV. Though the bill appeared to be shelved after an international outcry, its principal supporter said last month the bill would be law "soon."

--------------------

The US abstained from the final vote to approve the resolution, with diplomats telling the UN General Assembly the US was "dismayed" at the decision.

-------------------

The resolution, which is expected to be formally adopted by the General Assembly in December, specifies many other types of violence, including killings for racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons and killings of refugees, indigenous people and other groups.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I'm curious, when do these nations become full moral agents? When, in other words, can we hold them responsible for their actions instead of holding other nations--Western nations all--responsible. I know you do not intend this but what you are doing is making these nations children, poor little backwards brown and yellow people who, were it not for the intervention of Europeans, wouldn't even think of such a thing. Poppycock!

They aren't looking for queers as an excuse. Their *religion* teaches them that queers should be killed. Not colonialism or imperialism. Most of these nations threw off the shackles of empire four or more decades ago. At *some* point we have to start treating them as full moral agents.

These nations would have thought this up if they had *never* had contact with a Westerner. It is instructive to note that each of those nations has *also* voted against anything related to women's rights in the UN, claiming--of course--local cultural integrity. They didn't learn sexism and patriarchy from the colonial powers, that was in play when the Western navies first appeared on the horizon. I see no reason to believe that homophobia was something that imperialism brought to these nations.


Cheers
Aj

What I have such a problem with concerning religious (any) thought and homosexuality is that they "preach" that "all are Gods children." you find this across all organized world religions in some form or another (although in many of these countries, women are really only viewed as valuable due to their ability to have children- even to the point of ritually removing portions of a woman's body that would give them sexual pleasure- they only need to conceive and carry children, not have carnal pleasure in any form, ever).

This really gets to me in terms of anti-abortion zealots who "preach" about the sanctity of life, yet, believing that certain of "Gods children" do not have a right to life. Christian religions are certainly not the only one’s that do this. Personally, as someone that does have a spiritual life‘s path, this really angers me.

My statements come from more knowledge of former Christianity, yet, it seems that these hypocrisies appear throughout the various world religions. I absolutely detest some of the anti-Muslim sentiments in our society, yet, the sexism that exists with many forms of the Muslim faith is not acceptable to me at all and I don’t buy into cultural relativism as a pass for it. I respect differing cultural variables in terms of understanding people from different places and experiences, but, the days of PC-ing this stuff is over for me.

Then, on the other side of this we see spiritual thought that identifies and embraces homosexuality on a whole different level as in Native American spirituality and many Eastern based spiritual and religious thought. Two-Spirit beliefs fit here.

Now, if there exists an ancient sense of homosexuality that indeed, does link with the sanctity of all life (as is true of Two-Spirit thought) which would be another extension of all being part of a deities blessing (as it were), there is no link with these countries and Western influence (or imperialism) at all- and a huge divide between what is moral in relationship to honoring life.

No, we cannot continue to allow hiding behind cultural relativism as rationale for this way of thinking and it being part of legal documents and contracts of countries we interact with. Nor can we allow this to be accepted as moral in any human sense.

A person doesn't need any religious or spiritual connection in their life to see that this is simply another form of "cleansing" of a group of people from a society. Isn't any different than ethnic or racial cleansing that we have seen with the mass killings of particular people within societies throughout time to clear it of undesirables. same as the genocide of Jews and other groups in Germany and all genocidal events in history- and there have been many! Let us look to the genocide of Native Americans in the United States and when Columbus first arrived in the :“New World.”