Gays fail once more at UN
A paragraph about sex education in a resolution on the rights of
children stalled debate in the General Assembly on Tuesday and forced a vote on
the resolution, which has traditionally been adopted consensually.
Europeans and Latin Americans sponsoring the resolution could
not be swayed, and insisted throughout the weeks leading up to the vote that
the resolution on children must contain a specific prescription for
“comprehensive evidence-based education on human sexuality,” and no alternative
would satisfy them.
Delegations implored the sponsors of the resolution to show
“sensitivity” and to recognize the lack of consensus to no avail as they tried
to avert the vote altogether.
The preferred terminology of the sponsors has been controversial
at the General Assembly for over a decade, but has become even more
controversial since the World Health Organization published controversial
guidelines for Europe in 2010 it with an aggressive model of comprehensive
sexuality education that exposes children to masturbation, homosexuality,
gender identity, and other controversial issues from primary school, and even earlier.
The resolution did not just use the controversial term. It went
further, ostensibly justifying the inclusion of the term “in order to modify
the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women of all ages.”
A marathon 4-hour voting process, involving multiple amendments
and discussions about procedural issues, exposed deep fault lines separating
socially conservative countries from the sponsors of the resolution.
The African Group said changing the paragraph with the
controversial language was a matter of “principle” and African countries
originally sponsoring the resolution withdrew their sponsorship.
Egypt did not only say that comprehensive sexuality education
violated their laws, but the UN Charter and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, by threatening the “purity” of children and their “psychological and
psychical balance.” Sudan echoed these comments from Egypt and described the
issue was “rootless.”
Nigeria objected to an “agenda thrust upon us at every turn”
with the intent to “undermine the foundations of our societies and ultimately
the family structure.” They spoke of the primary role of the family in the
education of children and the need to “sustain their innocence.”
Even India, which normally does not engage in thorny social
debates internationally, felt compelled to speak against the sponsors of the
resolution.
“The UN should not be forum for propaganda on which there is no
consensus,” the Indian delegate said, adding that the resolution went
“overboard” because of the hegemonic aspirations implied in the language about
modifying societies and cultures through sex education.
Other delegations, including Russia, complained about the
absence of discussion on many aspects of education, and the relentless focus on
the narrow issue of sex education.
The vote on an amendment to change the offensive term with the
more doctrinally neutral terminology “age-appropriate sex education,” was
close. 67 countries voted in favor of the amendment, 84 countries voted against
it, with 41 countries abstaining or not casting a vote at all.
The resolution overall passed comfortably by 128 votes, but 44
countries abstained, and over 20 countries did not cast a vote at all. Even
those voting in favor of the resolution, complained that the sponsors should
have accepted the amendments proposed.
The debate on sex education at the UN comes as developed
countries, where children have access to information about sex and are widely
taught sex education in schools, are experiencing a dramatic increase in
sexually transmitted diseases in teenage and college-age populations. In the
United States alone the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention
estimates that 10 million new sexually transmitted infections occur each year
among those aged 15-24.
It is increasingly difficult to estimate the trajectory that the
social debates at the UN are taking. Undoubtedly, the vote on the resolution on
the rights of the child signals that the debate is here to stay.
Social conservatives should be glad that the controversial
terminology that led to the vote on the child resolution was kept out of a
resolution on the “girl child” last week. Countries promoting LGBT rights have
also failed to include a reference to “sexual orientation and gender identity”
in any new resolutions.
