|
Council for Global Equality in the News
|
|
|
|
|
|
Council for Global Equality Praises Senators for Posing LGBT-Related Confirmation Questions
During the presidential campaign, President Obama pledged that human rights violations based on sexual orientation would be "part and parcel of any conversations we have about human rights." (See a full transcript of his statement by clicking here.) Today, to ensure that pledges of change are realized, the Council for Global Equality is working closely with our organizational members and our many individual supporters to hold the Obama Administration to that high standard.
Our efforts began before President Obama was sworn into office. Early in January, the Council for Global Equality encouraged supportive U.S. Senators to ask nominees for senior State Department positions confirmation questions focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in an effort to explore their positions on global human rights concerns and same-sex partnership benefits for the State Department's LGBT employees.
Senators Feingold (D-WI) and Casey (D-PA), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, rose to the challenge and posed LGBT-specific questions to the State Department's senior foreign policy team in three different hearings. The questions were addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew. Now that these senior leaders are on record as supporting LGBT equality, the Council will monitor their attention to the issues, while simultaneously working with friendly Congressional offices to hold the State Department to its commitments. Click on the links below to read the confirmation questions and responses from:
After Secretary Clinton's confirmation, a bi-partisan group of Congressional leaders, including Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Senators Russ Feingold and Ron Wyden, sent Secretary Clinton a detailed letter to follow up on her responses during the hearing. (Read the Congressional letter to Secretary Clinton by clicking here.) |
Council for Global Equality Fights Bush Policies at UN
 At the United Nations General Assembly in December, more than 60 countries submitted a ground-breaking statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity. (A copy of that statement can be found on the Council's website by clicking here.) Despite thousands of individual calls to the State Department from U.S. citizens, letters from Members of Congress, and requests from close U.S. allies, the Bush Administration refused to join the statement. That decision left us out of step with all of our close allies, and it meant that we were one of the only countries in the entire "Western Group" at the United Nations that failed to join the statement.
In a series of press statements, the Council for Global Equality admonished the Bush Administration for again refusing to acknowledge the universal application of human rights in its final days. (See our press releases by clicking here.) The Council for Global Equality is particularly grateful to the Human Rights Campaign, a founding member of the Council, for activating its alert system to help generate thousands of calls to the State Department on this issue, and to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, another founding member of the Council, for organizing advocacy meetings with the U.S. Mission to the UN before the December vote.
As adopted, the UN statement calls 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. It also calls on governments to ensure that human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity are properly investigated and prosecuted, and that human rights advocates who expose those abuses are adequately protected.
In refusing to join this human rights effort, the State Department chose to hide behind flimsy legal arguments that focused on the inconsistent application of human rights protections for LGBT Americans, rather than pledging future leadership on these basic human rights concerns. U.S. law and practice are both consistent with the legal norms expressed in the UN statement. Indeed, since the State Department actually requires all U.S. Embassies to report annually on discrimination impacting LGBT communities in other countries, it was astonishing that the State Department would question the legal status of human rights protections for LGBT individuals in this context.
The Council for Global Equality looks forward to constructive engagement on these and other human rights issues under the new Obama Administration. The Council also encourage Secretary of State Clinton to speak out as Secretary of State on LGBT issues by recognizing them as important human rights concerns, in the same manner as she so famously insisted that women's rights are human rights during her travels as First Lady. |
|
Council for Global Equality Submits Foreign Policy Proposals to Obama Transition Team
After the refusal of the Bush
Administration to sign the December UN statement on human rights, sexual
orientation and gender identity, the Council for Global Equality contacted the
Obama Transition Team to highlight the Bush Administration's leadership failure
at the United Nations. The Transition Team offered the Council an
opportunity to produce a policy statement on the subject, which we produced
with significant input from Council members. A copy of that paper was
circulated within the transition and posted on the transition website.
(Click here to read our policy analysis.)
The Council also sent a broader,
fifteen-point policy paper to the Obama Transition Team early in the fall, and
the Council's Chair, Mark Bromley, represented the Council at a well-publicized
LGBT meeting with the Obama Transition Team's senior leadership on
December 10. A copy of our general policy paper is available here. And a short video clip highlighting
the Transition Team's meeting with LGBT leaders is available here.
The Council also sent policy papers and comparative information from
other governments to the USAID-focused Transition Team.
|
Council for
Global Equality Addresses US and International Elected Officials
In December, the Council for Global Equality worked with the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute to organize a panel presentation focusing
on human rights within LGBT communities abroad.
The
panel was held at the Institute's annual conference for openly-LGBT
elected officials, and it was moderated by NPR's Ari Shapiro.
Participants
included Edmond Rhys Jones, a human rights officer from the British Embassy, who
discussed his government's recent efforts to mainstream international LGBT
issues within their general human rights policy; Paula Ettelbrick, Executive
Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Zvonimir
Dobrovic, an LGBT activist from Queer Zagreb; and Sunil Pant, an openly-gay
member of Nepal's Parliament and the leader of the largest LGBT group in
Nepal. Former U.S. Ambassador Michael Guest also
spoke about his service in the State Department and the opportunities
that exist for the United States to demonstrate leadership on LGBT human rights
concerns in the new Obama Administration.
(More details about the event can be seen on the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute's website by clicking here.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
