The United States and Iran: Together at Last

The US and Iran agree on something: that gay-rights groups shouldn't have consultative status in a UN agency. Alan Stewart Carl blogs about the decsion of the US to join such other freedom-loving societies like China, Cuba and Zimbabwe to block two gay organizations from joining the UN Economic and Social Council.

At the time, Alan reported that the story was only found on partisan media sites. I did some checking and found that the gay media is picking up the story with stories by The Southern Voice, The Advocate, and 365gay.com.

It should be noted that according to Human Rights Watch, Iran has a record of arresting, flogging and excuting gay men. Our own government's country report says basically the same thing. The US government also has some not so nice things to say about Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, who has blamed gays for Africa's problems and that they were without rights.

So, with all this, why does the US side with such rogues?

I have no answer. I think Alan says it best:

If true, this is disgraceful. What possible motivation would we have to deny gay rights groups a spot on a council that includes 3000 other groups? Is the current administration so hostile towards gays that it prefers to side with countries that execute homosexuals rather than allow gay groups to discuss issues important to them?

How disgusting.