Dr Paula Gerber The Commonwealth of Nations is being blasted by an Asia Pacific group which is questioning participation in an international body where the majority of countries can jail, if not kill, gays. As the Games begin in Glasgow, Kaleidoscope Australia is condemning the Commonwealth for failing to address the rights of its lgbti citizens, and asking whether it’s an international body that Australia and other like-minded nations should leave. In a paper published in the Alternative Law Journal, Kaleidoscope Australia President Dr Paula Gerber argues that the Commonwealth of Nations has totally failed to address the human rights of lgbti people, and that UN bodies and civil society offer the only routes to reform. “The Commonwealth should be a forum for advancing human rights across all its member states but unfortunately for LGBTI citizens this is not the case,” Dr Gerber says. She says we need to ask some tough questions, such as whether Australia and other like-minded nations “should continue to be a member of an international body where the majority of countries can jail, if not kill, gays?” In 42 of the 53 Commonwealth countries, it is a crime to be gay. That means that four out of every five countries competing in the Commonwealth Games still criminalise consensual homosexual sex including 100 per cent of Commonwealth nations in Asia and 64 per cent in the Pacific. The 2013 Commonwealth Charter explicitly states that members are committed to equality, non-discrimination and respect for human rights. Meanwhile openly-gay actor John Barrowman, of Torchwood fame, made his own statement by kissing a man at this morning's widely-televised opening ceremony:
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 24th July 2014 - 8:35am