GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE February 27, 2009

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www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

Obama supports U.N. bid to decriminalize gays

U.S. reverses its December position against the measure

by Eric Resnick

New York City The Obama administration supports a United Nations declaration seeking worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, reversing a position taken by George W. Bush at the end of his term. The 13 point non-binding measure sponsored by France late last year was the first time gay rights were debated and put to a vote before the General Assembly.

Homosexuality is banned by law in 80 countries and punishable by death in at least six. Sodomy laws criminalizing gay sex were considered constitutional in the U.S. until 2003.

France, which then held the presidency of the European Union, introduced the declaration knowing it did not have enough

support for a binding resolution.

The declaration's goal is "to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention."

Sixty-six countries voted in favor of the declaration on December 18, mostly European and Latin American nations.

The United States was not among them. The new administration, however, changed the U.S. position when the same wording was presented again by France at the Durban II Review Conference in Geneva, Switzerland on February 18. The measure condemns "all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation."

Last week's meeting was preparation for

a larger United Nations conference for world leaders and human rights organizations to evaluate progress on goals set in 2001 to eliminate racism and xenophobia.

United States participation in the conference is, itself, a departure from the foreign policy of the Bush administration. Conservatives in the U.S. and Israel are protesting it.

According to the human rights group U.N. Watch, the Obama administration joined the Czech Republic, which currently holds the E.U. presidency, New Zealand, Denmark, Colombia, the Netherlands, Argentina and Chile on behalf of the South American states, in a bitter fight to add gay equal rights to the agenda.

The effort failed, however. Opposing it were the nations that the Bush administra-

tion joined with in December, including the Vatican, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Botswana, Iran, Algeria, Syria, and South Africa on behalf of the African Group of nations. They succeeded in keeping any reference to human rights violations on the basis of sexual orientation out of the conference.

South Africa argued that sexual orientation "goes beyond the framework of the 2001 Durban declaration."

The Vatican said the conference should only deal with "inner conditions" and that sexual orientation is conduct, not a condition.

U.N. observer and blogger Mark Leon Goldberg wrote that, despite the loss, "it's relieving to see that the United States is now back on the side of the enlightened on this issue of basic human rights."

Kentucky bill would ban gay and lesbian adoption

by Roger Alford

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Frankfort, Ky.-An LGBTI rights group is opposing Kentucky legislation that would bar gay and lesbian couples from adopting children.

The Fairness Campaign issued a statement on February 23, calling the legislation sponsored by state Sen. Gary Tapp, RShelbyville, “an anti-gay political attack."

The measure would allow children to be placed only in adoptive or foster homes with people who "are not cohabiting outside of a marriage that is legally valid in Kentucky."

Under the legislation, children who were already placed in such homes before the legislation was enacted would not be uprooted.

Chris Hartman, head of the Fairness Cam-

paign, said the legislation unjustly rules out potentially good parents just because they're not married in the traditional sense.

"We literally can't afford to play politics with these children's lives," Hartman said. "Hundreds of children are awaiting adoption each day in Kentucky, and it should be our politicians' jobs to find them a home, not to categorically eliminate potential loving parents with an anti-gay political attack."

David Edmunds, a spokesman for the Family Foundation, said the legislation isn't discriminatory toward gay and lesbian couples because it also bars unmarried heterosexual couples from adoption and foster

care.

"Kentucky needs to find the best homes possible for children," Edmunds said. "This is not about an adults' rights issue. It's about

what is in the best interest of our children." Hartman said at least six other statesArkansas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah-have similar laws that he called "direct attacks" on nontraditional couples. The Kentucky measure, he said, “is irresponsible on every front” and isn't likely to pass during the current legislative session.

On February 24, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law released a cost estimate of proposed legislation, putting the tally at over $5.3 million in the first year.

"The bulk of the costs are associated with placing children in congregate care facilities, which are more costly than in-home foster care," noted study co-author Naomi Goldberg, the Peter J. Cooper Public Policy Fellow at the Williams Institute.

Additional costs cited in the report include the recruitment of new foster and adoptive parents.

Prohibiting unmarried couples from fostering or adopting would reduce the number of foster and adoptive families available to care for the 7,027 children currently in foster care. The report suggests that 630 foster children will be removed from their current homes and placements during the first year that the ban is in effect. In addition, 85 children in foster care will either not be adopted or remain in foster care longer because the ban will prohibit their adoption by unmarried couples.

"Given the current shortage of qualified foster and adoptive parents, prohibiting unmarried couples from acting as foster or adoptive parents would be costly to the state and harmful to the children in foster care," Goldberg noted.

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