And I say to myself, "What A Wonderful World..."

The colors of the rainbow,
so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands,
sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying, "I love you"
"What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong

The New York Times reports that for the first time in United Nations history, a declaration in support of gay rights was introduced in the U.N.’s General Assembly.

According to the Times article, the resolution, which condemned human rights violations based on homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal declaration of human rights, had the support of 66 of the member nations, including much of Europe and Latin America.

Such a “radical” statement, right??

Can you guess who opposed this non-binding resolution?

Well, if you guessed, the Roman Catholic Church’s UN representative, Russia, China, and the Islamic Conference, you’d be almost-completely correct. Of course, you can’t forget the George Bush’s version of the Good Ol’ U.S. of A.

According to the Times report:

The official American position was based on highly technical legal grounds. The text, by using terminology like “without distinction of any kind,” was too broad because it might be interpreted as an attempt by the federal government to override states’ rights on issues like gay marriage, American diplomats and legal experts said.

So, states’ rights are vitally important when a non-binding statement of basic human rights is the issue, but if we’re talking about an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that outright appropriates those self-same states’ rights (i.e., the so-called "Federal Marriage Amendment") for the all-powerful Big Brother, then those rights--like those of GLBTQI people--are quite expendable.

Hypocrisy much??