Last month, the Bush administration added to the international scene its own peculiar take on global diplomacy when it backed an Iranian initiative to deny UN consultative status to two GLBT organizations – the Danish Association of Gays and Lesbians (LBL) and the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA.)

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), at the behest of several Islamic nations as well as the United States, summarily dismissed their applications for non-governmental organization (NGO) status without allowing either organization a hearing – a move unprecedented in the 60-year history of the United Nations. Customarily, any non-governmental organization seeking recognition by the UN is allowed time to state their case. Such time may be extended by a vote of the representative member states.

In May last year, the United States representative at the United Nations voted to block these two human rights organizations both from being heard and, ultimately, from being recognized. The U.S. was joined by Cameroon, China, Cuba, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Votes in favor of the LBL and ILGA came from France, Germany, Peru, Chile and Romania.

By denying these groups access to the international diplomatic community, has the Bush administration invested in the global economy of social injustice and found common ground with notorious human rights abusers such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cuba and China?

This is not the first time GLBT organizations have suffered such a setback at the UN. In 2003, a coalition of Islamic states, with the added support of various other countries and the Catholic Church, blocked a similar motion in the UN Commission on Human Rights. At the time, various GLBT groups were petitioning for official recognition within the UN charter on human rights. Yet when the issue was to be decided, the Geneva based commission voted to delay such recognition for at least another year. This decision came amid mounting pressure from five Muslim states: Egypt, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In fact, Pakistan sought to delete the text outright, stating that such recognition went against the grain of Islamic values.

That same year, 21 Egyptian men were sent to prison following a series of arrests of individuals whom the state accused of being gay. Peter Tatchel, an outspoken gay rights campaigner in Britain, said that the vote had “been derailed by Islamic fundamentalist states where gay people are … jailed, flogged or beheaded.”

In 2001, several Western nations protested an attempt by the Egyptian delegation to a UN AIDS conference to link the spread of HIV with homosexuality. Additionally, the proposed Egyptian text linked homosexuality to “irresponsible behavior,” directly likening it to prostitution.

The Western protests continued unabated, but the issue went unresolved when the conference came to an end. When ILGA asked media organizations and members of the UN to abstain from perpetuating anti-gay language, conservative organizations such as WorldNetDaily called them a “threat to the First Amendment.”

Iran, which sponsored the most recent legislation to deny consultative status and supported previous anti-gay legal maneuvers, found an unlikely ally in last month’s vote: the Bush administration. President Bush, who identified the political disagreements between the more liberal European governments and his own conservative political style as a conflict between “old Europe” and a coalition of the willing, seems to have found a cluster of countries who share his social view of lesbians and gays.

This group includes China, which shut down Beijing’s first-ever gay and lesbian cultural festival three months ago and arrested the leaders of affiliated activist groups who discussed HIV and AIDS issues.

Zimbabwe, another country that voted against ILGA and LBL, has been described by various human rights groups as being among the worst countries for gays and lesbians to live. Indeed, President Robert Mugabe’s hostile attitude toward the GLBT community was never more apparent than when he publicly derided gays as being “worse than dogs.” That same year, he stated that those in the community should be “tied up and turned over to the police for immediate prosecution.”

In this part of Africa, sodomy is defined as unlawful and intentional sexual relations between males. And if lesbians can’t be charged under this law, they can be arrested under “unnatural acts” statutes. The International Lesbian and Gay Association has in the past described the African nation of Sudan, another signatory of this and other anti-gay UN legislation, as being “horrendous on the issue of gay and lesbian rights.”

A similar resolution was put forth late last month by Brazil, a traditional ally for gays and lesbians in the UN, calling upon the rest of the world to “promote and protect the human rights of all persons, regardless of their sexual orientation.” In language unheard since the UN’s foundation, the resolution on human rights and sexual orientation was offered with the support of 19 other countries. Once again, a league of five Muslim nations worked to defeat the amendment, allowing it to pass as a toothless ghost of its former self, with all language relating to gays and lesbians stripped from the final draft. Egypt, Pakistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia led the opposition to this legislation.

The list of threats to gays and lesbians, both physical and legal, are too numerous to list.

So far, the Bush administration hasn’t directly attacked the GLBT community through the UN so much as facilitate those who do. Such questionable temperance seems more likely to reflect the unstable political scene at home rather than unwillingness on Bush’s part to promote such intolerance abroad. This implies that in the current political climate, the Bush administration might feel compelled to provide lip-service protection to gays and lesbians while allying itself with Third-World despots and unrepentant human-rights abusers in an international fight against same-sex civil liberties.

Could this be the first wave of a “shock and awe”-style assault on international gay rights? By courting these foreign governments, is Bush forming a coalition aimed at destabilizing the gains gays and lesbians have made in the past 20 years?

By all indications, the answer seems to be yes. In a role celebrated as “the leader of the free world,” the current administration seems to be taking gigantic leaps backward on the subject of global civil rights.

Poland – not a signatory, yet still a country which the Bush administration touts as a key ally in the so-called war on terror, and which traditionally has had a special relationship with Washington – recently elected Lech Kaczynski to the presidency. Kaczynski earned praise from conservative elements within Europe during his reign as mayor of Warsaw, where he publicly, and unapologetically, criticized the GLBT movement.

During his term as mayor, President Kaczynski banned Pride celebrations three times and refused to even meet with event organizers, famously saying that he was “unwilling to meet with perverts.”

When activists defied the ban in 2004, members of the far-right All-Polish Youth attacked them. While members of this counter-protest were detained, President Kaczynski admonished the police for interfering.

Last year, about 2,500 activists again defied the ban, marching on the streets of Warsaw with local and international politicians joining them. Claudia Roth of Germany’s Green Party stated that, “Democracy also means freedom of assembly and expression.”

ILGA, in response to the bans, wrote an open letter to Kaczynski expressing “deep concern” over his decision.

Scott Long, director of the LGBT Rights Program, said: “As mayor of Warsaw, President Kaczynski opposed the right of gay and lesbian people to basic freedoms and respect. As president, he will determine whether Poland protects our rights or chips away at them.” In this letter, Long’s group urged Kaczynski to reconsider the ban, and reminded him of his obligation to “respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of all of Poland’s citizens.”

In a State Department report on human rights practices, Poland is described as a country that generally respects the human rights of its citizens. However, the document goes on to speak of “other societal discrimination and abuses.”

This report reads, in part: “Homosexuality is not criminalized; however, polls indicated that most Poles did not discuss the issue publicly. In May, right-wing groups and football hooligans armed with eggs and stones attacked a gay rights demonstration in Krakow. Police moved to protect the group, but the counter-protesters attacked the police. The mayor of Warsaw stated that this violence contributed to his decision to deny approval of a gay rights parade in Warsaw in June, organized by the International Gay and Lesbian Association. Gay rights activists held a peaceful rally on the day following the date the parade was to have taken place. Counter-demonstrators picketed the rally, including members of the ultraconservative [All-Polish Youth], which had been associated with violent incidents in the past. However, there were no reported incidents of violence at the rally.”

In November, several organizations and political parties, including Lambda, the Green Party and the New Left, organized a March of Equality in Poznan on International Tolerance Day. City authorities granted permission for the march despite protests from conservative parties and church associations. The march was provided with a police escort, but was blocked by soccer hooligans and members of All-Polish Youth. These groups attempted to break the police cordon and attack the marchers, but were thwarted by the police escort. Following the attempted disruption, the police and organizers agreed to change their format from a march to a rally. Opponents threw eggs and lemons, and verbally abused the rally participants.

A Polish Radio poll found that 49 percent opposed public demonstrations for gay rights. Television stations in Wroclaw and Lodz aired anti-gay commercials sponsored by the fascist political organization Narodowe Odrodzenia Polski.

Saudi Arabia, another cosignatory and American ally in the war on terror, seems to have adopted a more subtle approach to the issue. While a person legally can be beheaded for homosexuality in the country, such instances are seen as increasingly rare. The last time it happened was in 2000, when three men were beheaded under sketchy circumstances.

Originally, it was thought that these men were executed due to their orientation. Saudi Arabia’s English-language news source, arabnews.com, reported “three Saudi men convicted of sodomy and marrying each other were beheaded yesterday in the southwestern city of Abha.” Representatives at the Saudi Embassy later claimed that the men were arrested, tried and executed for molesting young boys. Given the Saudi record on human rights, either explanation is possible.

This isn’t to say that the kingdom doesn’t have a history of specifically targeting the gay community. In March last year, over a hundred suspected gay men were arrested by Special Forces officers in what Saudi authorities described as a gay wedding. While the majority of these men were later released, the arrests bring to light a cultural taboo that many in the region use to settle personal vendettas: In Saudi Arabia, it only takes a single accusation of homosexual conduct to lead to an arrest, and recent reports suggest that these accusations have been used in alarming numbers as an avenue for settling personal disputes.

ILGA, one of the groups involved in the Saudi Arabia controversy, was formed in August 1978 during the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in England. Originally called the International Gay Association, it changed its name to ILGA in 1986. Thirty men representing dozens of organizations from 14 countries were involved in its creation. For 13 years, ILGA pressured other human rights groups such as Amnesty International to add the gay and lesbian community to their roster of protected minorities.

By 1993, ILGA had gained consultative status with ECOSOC, but their status was short lived. In less than a year, their status was suspended following a vitriolic campaign by the late American Senator Jesse Helms, who focused on NAMBLA’s membership. Though ILGA voted overwhelmingly to expel NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association), as well as two other questionable groups, the UN removed ILGA from its roster of consultative NGOs.

Having purged NAMBLA, ILGA applied to have its status reinstated several times, but each time ECOSOC voted against them. In 2002, ECOSOC voted 29-17 to deny their grant application. The Washington Times later reported that opponents within the UN blocked ILGA’s attempts because the group declined to provide sufficient evidence that it had severed all ties with pedophile groups. This claim was exacerbated when ILGA refused to provide a list of its member organizations, claiming that identifying their member groups might jeopardize their safety, particularly in countries that still consider homosexuality a criminal activity.

Today, ILGA is divided into six regional branches: ILGA Africa, ILGA Asia, ILGA ANZAPI (Australia, New Zealand, Aotearoa and the Pacific Islands,) ILGA Europe, ILGA North America and ILGA-LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean).

What is the role of an NGO with consultative status at the United Nations? What kind of access is available to them, as opposed to any other political group or corporation?

NGOs accredited with consultative status have been a part of the UN since it’s founding in the late 1940s. Indeed, in 1948 there were 45 agencies working to advise the various member states on any number of issues. Today there are hundreds, ranging from the African Muslim Association to the World Press Freedom Committee. Put in the simplest of terms, NGOs are lobbyists whose influence and work affects government decisions on an international level.

Even among the member states, rancorous debate on homosexuality and the value of human life continues. Some member states, such as France, Brazil and Germany, have offered unequaled support to the GLBT community, while members such as the United States, African and Middle Eastern countries have consistently voted in opposition.

The UN High Commission on Human Rights, itself a subsidiary of ECOSOC, has consistently faced criticism for its composition. In 2001, the United States was expelled from the commission, due in no small part to its unwillingness to recognize the International Criminal Court (the U.S. was reinstated two years later).

The high commission faced even more criticism for its admission of countries like China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia, as well as previous members Vietnam, Libya, Algeria and Syria. To varying degrees, all of these countries have been accused of serious human rights violations.

In 2004, United States Ambassador Sichan Siv stormed out of the commission following a unanimous vote that brought Sudan aboard, declaring the move an “absurdity.” At this time, Sudan was actively involved in a series of ethnic cleansings in the Darfur region. Responding to Ambassador Siv’s criticism, Sudanese Ambassador Omar Bashir Manis cited American involvement in Iraq, specifically the Abu Ghraib scandal.

In addition to criticism from various external organizations, the commission has been plagued by in-fighting. The election of Sudan has caused some nations to avoid working with the commission. Following the mass killings in Darfur, it was the UN Security Council, not the Commission on Human Rights, that passed a resolution threatening the Sudan with sanctions if the situation failed to improve. Issues relating to migration, torture, arbitrary detention and GLBT rights are rarely addressed.

This isn’t to say that anti-gay legislation comes solely from Muslim states. Indeed, some GLBT organizations, working under conditions most of us couldn’t begin to understand, come from the Muslim community.

The Al-Fatiha Foundation, founded in 1998 by Pakistani-American Faisal Alam, has devoted itself to furthering the cause of GLBT Muslims around the world. Today, Al-Fatiha is registered as a nonprofit organization in the United States, and has branches in England, South Africa and Canada.

While many U.S. GLBT groups face legal opposition and social pressure, Al-Fatiha continues to work in an environment that offers little, save a clear and present danger to life and limb. In 2001 Al-Muhajiroun, an international organization seeking the establishment of a caliphate, or a global Islamic state, issued a fatwa declaring all members of Al-Fatiha apostates and condemning them to death.

Homosexuality officially carries the death penalty in seven Islamic nations: Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland and Yemen. In Iraq and Afghanistan, it remained a capital crime until the American invasion, which leaves the legal disposition of gays and lesbians in the region murky at best. Prior to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, “outed” gays within Iraq and Afghanistan faced extreme judicial sentences. Since the fall of their respective governments, punishment has fallen in severity from death to jail time and a fine.

In the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Algeria and the Maldives, as well as secular nations like Turkey, Jordan and Mali, same-sex intercourse is not specifically illegal, though it can still be prosecuted under regional morality laws.

Iran seems to be the most virulently anti-gay. By some estimates, it has executed over 4,000 gay men and women since the fall of the Shah. Lebanon, still recovering from a long and bloody civil war, remains the only Muslim-majority nation to have an internal movement to legalize homosexuality.

Classic interpretations of the Quran seem to treat homosexuality as a minor sin. This may have given rise to a peculiar sexual reaction in regions where the intermingling of unmarried men and women is forbidden. While severe legal repercussions have prevented the rise of any public gay rights movement, it is common for some young men to experiment with gay relationships. These affairs are often considered safety valves, an avenue in which men can satisfy their needs without the risk of pregnancy or legal punishment.

Still, most of these men would not consider themselves gay or bisexual, at least in the Western sense of the word. In addition, it remains problematic for authorities in many Islamic states to seek out and punish suspected homosexuals. Islamic law demands that a certain number of men and women witness the acts and testify in court. There is also a strong value on the right to privacy in the home. Theoretically, whatever happens between two individuals within the confines of a private residence is outside the boundaries of the law.

There have been many calls for reform within the UN, but those calls come from different directions, each with a unique – and often conflicting – solution. There are some within the world community who would like to see the UN play a larger role in international affairs, but at the same time, there is a large number who would like to see its work reduced to humanitarian work.

One frequent complaint is that the commissions within the UN aren’t democratic enough, and that they instead represent the world powers of 1945. This question of democracy demands that its members decide whether or not the UN is in itself a governing body, or a platform for debate and discussion on the issues that affect multiple nations.

One question remains: Why did the State Department side with a coalition of rogue nations known for quashing their citizens’ most basic civil rights, instigating terrorism abroad and fomenting internal religious zealotry over two organizations whose stated goals are to protect and defend the rights of a worldwide minority?

According to State Department spokesperson Edgar Vasquez, it all comes down to one thing: pedophilia. In a recent statement, Vasquez said, “The United States continues to implement a law requiring certification by the United Nations to prohibit funding of NGOs that condone pedophilia.”

Despite efforts by ILGA to disavow all connections to NAMBLA, their opponents, specifically those within right-wing circles, continue to use NAMBLA’s one-time membership as a switch with which to flog not only ILGA, but many other GLBT activist groups.

The United Nations was born from the ashes of World War II, following a time when small nations could impose their rule on others with impunity – when ultra-conservative governments could wage war on innocent neighbors and unpopular minorities with tragic results. For six years, the Bush administration has followed the heterosexually-obsessed advice of men like Jerry Falwell and organizations like Focus on the Family, managed to bully Congress into accepting rabid ideologues to the Supreme Court, and threatened to add amendments to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage. One can only hope that the Bush administration is unable to sell this particular brand of politics abroad as easily as it has at home.