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Homosexual group seeks recognition
Barred because of pedophilia connection
The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)—a gay-rights group barred from the UN because some of its members promote pedophilia—is seeking reinstatement as a non-governmental organization (NGO) by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). If ILGA regains NGO status it can lobby and consult the UN member states on a number of crucial and contentious issues, including how the UN defines and interprets human rights. ILGA also defines same-sex marriage—what it labels “partnership”—as a basic human right.
In 1993, ILGA became the first gay-rights group granted official UN recognition. ILGA is an umbrella organization representing hundreds of homosexual groups worldwide. Some of those groups, which have included the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), have either condoned pedophilia or promoted it. In 1994, the UN revoked ILGA’s NGO status because of this association with pedophilia.
ILGA now claims to have severed ties with some of the most visible pedophilia groups, such as NAMBLA. But according to a September, 1994, report in the New York Times, ILGA still could not provide assurances that all such groups had been eliminated from the organization.
Critique of UN document on children
Undue emphasis on “reproductive rights”
Maria Sophia Aguirre, professor of economics at Catholic University of America, has issued a highly critical analysis of the draft document for the upcoming UN World Summit on Children, according to the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. In her report Aguirre accuses the document’s drafters of forcing a major emphasis on “reproductive rights” for adolescents, to the near exclusion of what she sees as the real health issues facing the world’s children.
For several months the United Nations has been holding a series of governmental meetings meant to draft a document to be released by the General Assembly during its special session on children in September. UNICEF, the coordinating agency for the summit on children, along with a small number of member states, has been charged with preparing the rough draft of the document. So far, UNICEF has prepared two drafts, both of which have come under severe criticism from a broad range of UN member states.
Aguirre concedes that the latest draft contains some improvements over earlier versions, including the elimination of a reference to the family “in all its diverse forms”—a phrase that was designed to include homosexual couples. She also praises the document for its emphasis on children’s welfare. But she reacts strongly against the use of language that makes indirect reference to legal abortion, and draws a dubious connection between feminism and the rights of children. Aguirre is also concerned about the new document’s heavy emphasis on AIDS, to the exclusion of other diseases; she counted only a single reference to such deadly maladies as malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea.