Gays and the United Nations

Via Brian.Carnell.com, the fact that gay and lesbian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been having a lot of trouble at the United Nations.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. committee rejected credentials of a Canadian gay and lesbian organization seeking consultative status with the United Nations and deferred the application of a similar body from Sweden, according to documents circulated on Friday.

Accreditation, which has been given to more than 2,000 groups, enables them to take part in U.N. conferences and offer advice in their field of expertise, such as human rights, health and humanitarian aid.

Envoys from the Canadian and Swedish U.N. missions criticized the U.N. Committee on Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) at its Wednesday meeting, with Canada’s Nell Stewart expressing dismay at the panel’s “pattern of discrimination” in treating groups on sexual orientation.

The Canadian group was the Coalition of Gays and Lesbians of Quebec (Coalition Gaie et Lesbienne du Quebec), a national organization. The Stockholm group was the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights.

On the rejection of the Canadian group, the vote was 8 to 6. Against were Burundi, China, Egypt, Guinea, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Sudan. Voting in favor were Colombia, Israel, Peru, Romania, Britain and the United States.

Gosh, we thought the Bush Administration was a bunch of nasty homophobes.

Abstaining were Angola, India and Turkey.

The U.N. committee is a subsidiary of the U.N. Economic and Social Council, which can reverse the panel’s decisions. But with notable exceptions it agrees with the committee’s rulings.

British delegate Thomas Woodruffe told the panel that every NGO that met the criteria approved by the U.N. Economic and Social Council should be admitted in the fields of health, gender and human rights.

He noted that 100 groups had been accepted with varying viewpoints not all governments accepted.

Human rights groups are often turned down, particularly when they deal with dissidents in authoritarian countries. Even the influential New York-based Human Rights Watch was rejected in 1992 before being admitted a year and a half later.

Jewish groups also have a problem, and their applications are usually deferred or rejected. Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization that runs hospitals in Israel, succeeded after lengthy diplomatic fights in 2001.

In its decisions this week, the committee admitted the American Conservative Union and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the (U.S.) Southern Baptist Convention.

For politically correct leftists, this has to produce a lot of cognitive dissonance.

On the one hand, gays and lesbians are a politically correct victim group, and any opposition to their agenda is called “homophobia.”

On the other hand, the U.N. is supposedly a source of great moral authority. It represents the “world community.” Thus if the U.S. acts without U.N. sanction (invading Iraq, for example), it must be American that’s in the wrong.

The reality, of course, is that the U.N. has no particular moral authority. It is made up of highly self-seeking politicians, often representing extremely unsavory regimes.

And many of them aren’t too keen on homosexuality.

Brian Carnell suggests:

. . . the best bet for gay and lesbian groups would probably be to adopt anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic planks. Egypt, Pakistan and Qatar may not be thrilled by a gay and lesbian group, but if that group, say, argued that Jews were behind a worldwide plot against gays and lesbians, they’d probably win immediate approval.

That would present an interesting test: do they hate gays or Jews more?