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On 1:59 PM, Joonas Laine wrote: > Cuba is among the supporters of the amendment. The following list of > supporters of the amendment is from the International Gay and Lesbian > Human Rights Commission website. "The representative of Cuba said that it maintained its traditional position against any form of discrimination and that Cuba had voted for the amendment proposed by the African Group, which was sufficiently general and comprehensive. It related to all killings, including executions on the grounds of sexual orientation." http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2010/gashc3997.doc.htm ================ Cuba's argument recalls the original debate in the USA over replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution. The Federalists argued that there was no need for a Bill of Rights because the Constitution did not give the Federal government the authority to abridge them. Replacing the paragraph in question with the more general onecould make it more inclusive, but will it? Many UN treaties contain the weasel-wording that their protections are only en forcible "consistent with the rule of law". The Anti-Federalists felt that explicit and unequivocal guarantees were needed because the Constitutionwas intentionally vague on a number of points and the nature of government was always and everywhere to exploit that vagueness to accrete power in ways that diminished the rights of the ordinary individual. In the context of this treaty, retaining the explicit inclusion of sexual orientation might have helped to restrain Uganda's bloodlust to execute homosexuals. Removing it is a signal to them (and Iran and ...) that it is open season on homosexuals and the UN can do nothing to object. After all, in those countries it is the rule of law. The Cubans' argument stikes me as pure unadulterated bullshit. David ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
