66 nations at the UN General Assembly have today supported a groundbreaking statement confirming that international human rights protections include sexual orientation and gender identity. The document reaffirms "that everyone is entitled to the enjoyment of human rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." It also condemns the imprisonment, torture or execution of homosexuals which currently occurs in 77 nations. New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom were among the countries who supported the statement, which was noisily rejected by several Arab nations, and by The Vatican. The United States, China and Russia also did not sign the document. It is the first time LGBT rights have been significantly pressed by the UN's General Assembly. Lobby group Human Right Watch is calling the declaration "a powerful victory for the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." French Human Rights Minister Rama Yade a Senegalese-born Muslim, asked the high-level meeting: "In this 21st century, how can we accept that people are hunted down, jailed, tortured and executed because of their sexual orientation?" However, she acknowledged that the road to equality for LGBT in many nations would be "difficult." Efforts to gather support for the declaration had resulted in outright hostility by some. "The funeral pyres of intolerance are and have always burned everywhere," she said.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Friday, 19th December 2008 - 2:50pm