UN General Assembly Votes To Allow Gays To Be Executed Without Cause
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.
A number of LGBT human rights advocates were surprised by the decidedly lop-sided vote, including Mark Bromley, the chair of the Council on Global Equality, a Washington, D.C. based organization that brings together human rights organizations, LGBT groups, philanthropists and corporate leaders to “encourage a clearer and stronger American voice on human rights concerns impacting LGBT communities around the world.”
“I was very surprised by the vote,” said Bromley, who had been in contact with the United States Mission to the United Nations delegation all day Tuesday, who were trying to beat back efforts to strip sexual orientation from the resolution. But because the U.S. supports capital punishment, they usually abstain from voting on this resolution, thus they are in a weakened position with one arm tied behind their backs, according to Bromley. “But that said, the State Department did everything possible to beat back the efforts to repeal protections for LGBT persons,” he added.
For further analysis into this story, read Tanya Domi’s latest piece at The New Civil Rights Movement, “UN Vote Allowing Gays To Be Executed Result Of Political, Religious Fundamentalism.”
The U.K. gay rights and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said,
“This is a shameful day in United Nations history. It gives a de facto green light to the on-going murder of LGBT people by homophobic regimes, death squads and vigilantes. They will take comfort from the fact that the UN does not endorse the protection of LGBT people against hate-motivated murder.
“The UN vote is in direct defiance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees equal treatment, non-discrimination and the right to life. What is the point of the UN if it refuses to uphold its own humanitarian values and declarations?
“This vote is partly the result of a disturbing homophobic alliance between mostly African and Arab states, often inspired by religious fundamentalism. LGBT people in these countries frequently suffer severe persecution.”
In an issued statement explaining the U.S. vote, a representative of the U.S. UN delegation said,
At the outset, let me say that the United States strongly agrees with and appreciates the cosponsors’ efforts to retain language specifically condemning ESAs [extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions]Â targeting vulnerable groups, particularly members of the LGBT community, and we were dismayed that this reference could not survive an unfriendly amendment.
Bromley expressed great disappointment in losing all the Southern African countries on the vote, including Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Nambia and South Africa, the latter, whose domestic laws and record on LGBT civil rights have held great regard throughout the world. Nonetheless, according to Bromley, from the days of  former President Thabo Mbeki through present day leader Jacob Zuma, South Africa has been recalcitrant in its opposition to extending human rights to LGBT persons within international legal structures.
Another region that unanimously supported the removal of sexual orientation from the resolution were the Carribean nations. Most noteworthy was the support from the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica. Bromley indicated that the U.S. and human rights groups in the hemisphere have opportunities to forcefully advance LGBT rights through the Organization of American States (OAS) and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  Brazil and Uruguay are international leaders on LGBT rights and can play a constructive role in bringing Carribean nations into the OAS fold on these issues, according to Bromley.
Middle East countries that principally observe the Muslim religion and its practices, as well as countries whose politics are dominated by Christian fundamentalists, generally oppose LGBT and women’s rights at the UN. Even the United States has yet to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Indeed, CEDAW has the most “reservations” filed by the most member states of any international human rights convention on record. A reservation is a statement made by a State which it purports to exclude or alter the legal effect of certain provisions of a treaty in their application. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights,
A reservation may enable a State to participate in a multilateral treaty in which it would otherwise be unable or unwilling to do so. States can make reservations to a treaty when they sign, ratify, accept, approve or accede to it.  When a State makes a reservation upon signing, it must confirm the reservation upon ratification, acceptance or approval…a reservation cannot be contrary to the object and purpose of the treaty.
As an LGBT activist or an observer of UN and international politics, it is important for interested persons to understand that religion and culture play a major role in persuading internal bodies to not extend certain human rights to LGBT persons and women on religious and cultural grounds. These dynamics have created an international debate between advocates of “cultural relativism“–those who assert primacy of cultural values over human rights and those who are “universalists,” who believe rights trump cultural concerns.
The United States Mission to the United Nations has an explanation of the U.S.’s vote.
Editor’s note: Thanks to Andrés Duque for bringing this to our attention.
Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.
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The Trump administration is facing a lawsuit accusing it of breaking federal law by taking down the LGBTQ+ Pride flag at New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement.
The U.S. Department of the Interior and Secretary Doug Burgum, as well as the National Park Service and Acting Director Jessica Bowron, are named in the lawsuit filed by attorneys for the Gilbert Baker Foundation and others. Gilbert Baker is the artist who created the rainbow Pride flag.
“In the lawsuit,” The New York Times reported, “the Gilbert Baker Foundation argued that the original Pride flag fell under one of the allowed exceptions: to provide historical context at national monuments. This is the exception that allows Confederate flags to be flown at properties managed by the Park Service, including Gettysburg National Military Park.”
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“This was no careless mistake,” the lawsuit reads, according to a screenshot posted by New York Daily News reporter Molly Crane-Newman. “The government has not removed other historical flags at other national monuments, most notably Confederate flags.”
The suit alleges that the “assault on Stonewall is the latest example in a long line of efforts by the Trump Administration to target the LGBTQ+ community for discrimination and opprobrium.”
“In February 2025, for instance, the administration removed the word ‘transgender’ from prominent sections of the Stonewall monument’s website, as part of its wider campaign to demean and erase the transgender community,” it states.
“The Trump Administration has deleted numerous NPS websites discussing LGBTQ+ history,” it continues, “fired at least one federal employee for displaying a pride flag in his office; banned the use of pronouns in email signatures; renamed a John Lewis-class replenishment oiler named after Harvey Milk, a pioneering gay rights leader who served as a Navy officer and one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States.”
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It also cites what it calls “a particularly absurd example,” in which images of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay — the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb — were flagged for deletion, apparently because the images included the word “Gay.”
The lawsuit alleges a “pattern of systemic targeting of the LGBTQ+ community—combined with the starkly disparate treatment of the Pride flag,” which it claims “demonstrates that the decision to alter the Stonewall monument was not just a mistake. It was based on an impermissible animus.”
Numerous New York elected leaders at all levels, including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, denounced the administration’s removal of the flag.
The removal became a national flashpoint, drawing hundreds of locals to protest and prompting elected leaders to vow to raise it again.
Activists and officials gathered for multiple demonstrations at the Stonewall National Monument, where they raised a new Pride flag — an act that the Trump administration condemned as a “political stunt.”
READ MORE: Massie Warns of Growing GOP ‘Defections’
Image via Reuters
A prominent House Republican who successfully advanced bipartisan legislation to release the Epstein files is predicting there will be more GOP “defections” once the primaries are over.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Politico that because Speaker Mike Johnson’s majority is so thin, “on any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done” that goes against the Trump administration’s agenda.
He said that “what’s happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you’re going to see more defections.”
Massie added that “quietly and privately, people are telling me they agree with me.”
In a surprising revelation, Massie said that House Republicans “are being told every week to stand down, bite their tongue, sit on their hands, do what they’re told, be part of the team and put their brain in neutral.”
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Massie also offered several other pointed remarks.
He noted that after President Trump called him a “moron” at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, pastors were “not impressed and I don’t think anybody was impressed by his performance at the prayer breakfast. It was completely political.”
The Kentucky Republican further directed strong criticism toward Attorney General Pam Bondi after being the only member of his party to, as Politico reported, “spar” with her at last week’s contentious congressional hearing.
“When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and when the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet,” he said.
Massie described Bondi as looking “weak and frustrated” at the hearing “when she started talking about the Dow Jones, which has literally nothing to do with her job.”
“I thought that looked bad,” he said. He also pointed to her “stack of insults that were pre-prepared — in politics you might call it oppo research — and you could see her shuffling through them to try and find which one matched the person who was trying to ask her a question at the time. She found my card like right at the end, as you can see she was looking for it.”
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Image via Reuters
Far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes — who brands himself “America First” — once again is putting President Donald Trump and the GOP on notice, saying that Republicans are “gonna get destroyed” in the 2026 midterms and by 2028 it will be “Democrats on steroids.”
“We are headed for an utter and total defeat in the midterms,” Fuentes predicted on his Rumble streaming show on Monday, urging his supporters to not vote in November. Fuentes has 1.2 million followers on the X social media platform.
He said that “the Democrats will take the House, and then it is impeachment City. We are taking a trip to impeachment City.”
Democrats, Fuentes declared, will win the House and the Senate, and “then it’s impeachments, subpoenas, depositions, investigations. Trump might even be removed from office.”
“When all is said and done, he might even be pulled by his own people. That — there is a non-zero chance. As a matter of fact, there’s a good chance that’s gonna happen.”
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“Trump is getting impeached,” Fuentes continued. “Vance is getting impeached. Hegseth is — they’re all getting impeached. They’re all being subpoenaed. They’re all being deposed.”
“I warned you,” Fuentes said. “I told you, this is what was gonna happen.”
“My message in ’26, you could take it or leave it. Don’t vote. Don’t vote, do not vote in the midterms. The Republicans have to lose. They have to lose. They have to crash and burn. A cleansing fire is the only thing that will save us. It cannot be fixed.”
“F — — Trump, f — — MAGA, f — — all this stuff. It can’t be fixed. If it could have been fixed, it would have been fixed in 2025, but it wasn’t.”
“They made every mistake. Liberation Day: disaster. DOGE: disaster. Big, beautiful bill: disaster. Epstein files: disaster. Iran: disaster.
“The personnel — Mike Waltz: disaster. Ratcliffe: disaster, Rubio: disaster. Pam Bondi: disaster — all self-inflicted. Trump personnel, Trump policy, Trump strategy, Trump playbook — we tried it your way, it didn’t work.”
“Now we don’t vote. That’s the message. Seriously. Can’t blame anybody else. Bad advice, bad advisors, Biden’s economy. Enough already. It didn’t work. We’re not voting. I’m staying home, and you know what? I hope the Democrats impeach him. I hope the Democrats impeach all of them. I hope they indict everybody. I hope they depose and compel the release of documents, and I hope they find all the criminal behavior, and I hope it destroys the GOP. I hope it creates a crisis for the GOP so severe that they never recover.”
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Fuentes predicted that “in two years, this is gonna be the most unpopular administration in history. It’s gonna be a repeat of 2020. That’s what we’re looking at here.”
“Think about where Trump is — lowest approval rating of any modern president. Trump’s approval is lower at this point in his presidency, lower than Biden at this point, lower than Trump was at this point. Lowest that it’s been in the second term.”
He also lamented the lack of results he and his “America First” followers wanted.
“He’s completely underwater with the under 40 crowd, and it’s only gonna get worse, especially because Trump is not delivering on these things. No mass deportations, economy’s not getting better. Housing prices have literally never been more unaffordable. The wars are escalating, actually, as opposed to getting better. And now, we seriously have to contend with the possibility that in 2028, we get Democrats on steroids. We get Democrats with a vengeance.”
Fuentes has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “white nationalist,” an “admirer of fascists,” and someone who “frequently relies on antisemitic tropes.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, “Fuentes has used his platforms to make numerous antisemitic, racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments,” and spreads “white supremacist propaganda.”
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Image via Reuters
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