Dec 12, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR  | COMMENTS     

International gay rights groups expressed concern that the U.S. had not yet signed a proposed statement this week calling on the United Nations and countries throughout the world to condemn discrimination and persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The statement, proposed by France on behalf of the European Union, was scheduled to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week. More than 50 countries have signed the statement.

“The statement will call on all governments around the world to ensure that sexual orientation and gender identity are not subjected to criminal penalty, and that individuals are not executed, arrested or otherwise detained because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” according to the Council for Global Equality, a human rights group that advocates for gay and transgender rights.

Mark Bromley, the group’s chair, said human rights advocates are hopeful the U.S. will sign the statement.

He said activists lobbying the State Department on behalf of the statement believed the delay in U.S. acceptance of the document was due to distractions related to the transition from the Bush administration to the new administration headed by President-elect Barack Obama.

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.

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

A spokesperson for the State Department did not immediately respond to the Blade’s request for comment.

While the U.S. hesitated to embrace the statement, the Vatican created a stir in Italy last week when it denounced the statement as a disguised attempt to pressure countries into recognizing same-sex marriage. Vatican officials urged countries not to sign the statement.

Commentators for a number of Italian newspapers joined the Italian gay rights group Arci Gay in criticizing the Vatican for opposing a statement that the commentators said calls for an end to anti-gay persecution and has nothing to do with marriage.

A spokesperson for the Vatican Embassy in Washington did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment.
U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the only openly lesbian member of Congress, this week joined efforts to persuade the State Department to move quickly to back the proposed U.N. statement.

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.

“As a result of the leadership of the United States, and the Stewardship of Eleanor Roosevelt, the United Nations adopted that revolutionary statement calling unequivocally for the universal application of human rights without distinction or discrimination,” the three House members said in their letter.

Baldwin, Berman and Ackerman noted that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the theme of the 60th anniversary celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be “dignity and justice for all of us.”

In their letter, the three House members also called on the State Department and the U.S. to take steps to “ensure that the phrase ‘all of us’ is truly inclusive of all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals around the world.”