39 Days Left, Condi Still Mum. 3 Congress Members Beg Her To Sign UN Declaration Guaranteeing Gays Will Not Be Persecuted. No Response.

 

On Monday I wrote, “Bush Administration Refuses To Join Half The World In Asking United Nations to Decriminalize Homosexuality“ about the importance of International Human Rights Day, and that there would be a “declaration calling for the global decriminalisation of homosexuality” put before the United Nations’ General Assembly. Half the world has signed the statement already. The US, under George Bush and Condoleeza Rice’s leadership, has been napping.

Peter Tatchel in the guardian.co.uk spearheaded the story. (God forbid the American media would waste its time on this one.)

The Washington Blade today quotes Mark Bromley, Chairman of The Council for Global Equality, a human rights group that advocates for gay and transgender rights, saying,

“There’s plenty of precedent for the U.S. to do this.”

More via The Washington Blade:

“The U.S. signed on to a similar statement focusing on the rights of gays and transgender people issued earlier this year by the Organization of American States. The OAS represents all 35 independent countries in North, Central and South America.

In 2006, the U.S. signed another gay- and trans-rights related statement before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.”

 

“[Tammy] Baldwin, along with Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who chairs the House International Affairs Committee, and Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East & South Asia, sent a joint letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging her to arrange for the U.S. to sign the statement by next week.

The three House members noted in their letter that supporters of the proposed statement had hoped to have it issued by Dec. 10, the 60th anniversary of the signing of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That document is credited with helping start the modern human rights movement.”