LGBT Rights Become UN Currency

The UN bureaucracy has just issued a series of six commemorative LGBT stamps through the UN stamp office. The stamps are explicit and depict both male and female same-sex couples embracing and kissing, a gay couple with a young girl child, and a human butterfly figure representing a transsexual.

The stamps were unveiled this afternoon in the atrium of the General Assembly hall at UN headquarters in New York against the backdrop of a giant painting of naked figures dancing around a fire presided over by a nude statue of the Greek God of the sea Poseidon.

The rollout featured a 33 singers of the all-male New York City Gay Men’s Chorus singing “seasons of love” from the Broadway musical Rent and other popular love songs.

A Reuters UN correspondent introduced the unveiling and asked, “who would have thought we could get so excited about stamps in the digital age?” She encouraged all in attendance to purchase stamps and “spread the message.”

A representative of the UN Secretary General spoke by the information kiosk in the crowded atrium about the need to “address stereotypes” and “change attitudes,” and highlighted the UN’s commitment to just this through the new stamps.

Charles Radcliffe, who heads the UN’s LGBT Free and Equal Campaign thanked the choir for “filling the UN with the music of love.”

The normally phlegmatic Radcliffe appeared tense at the event.

Last night the Group of Friends of the Family spearheaded by Belarus, Qatar, and Egypt sent a letter to the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asking that he stop the issuance of the stamps and cancel the unveiling event. The letter said the promotion of LGBT rights was a “deeply controversial agenda” and that there was no “mandate” for it. Yesterday Nigeria issued a stern reprimand ahead of the unveiling. Up to 87 countries have reportedly informed the Secretary General of their displeasure with this latest effort to promote LGBT rights with  no reply from the Secretary General issued yet.

In effect, no UN treaty includes LGBT rights. No UN treaty protects homosexual conduct or can be fairly interpreted in that way.

“Why focus on LGBT?” Radcliffe asked at the event, pointing to the wars, terrorism, hunger that currently affects so many people.

He answered by pointing to 76 countries that penalize sodomy. “Everyday the UN is working to get these laws repealed,” he said. He also claimed that every year hundreds of people who identify as LGBT die and thousands are hurt because of violence.

UN artist Sergio Baradat who created the images on the stamps said he strived for the “beautiful, elegant, and loving.” He teared up as he presented his work, letting the crowd understand that he himself identifies as LGBT. It was he, Radcliffe said, who had the idea for the stamps.

The stamps capture the efforts of the UN bureaucracy to promote LGBT rights through the “Free and Equal Campaign” an initiative of the UN Secretary General’s human rights bureaucracy financed by Nordic countries that promotes a right to engage in sodomy, same-sex marriage, and other LGBT rights. The initiative is controversial because the Secretary General launched the campaign in 2012 without the support of the full membership of the United Nations. To this day, that support is not forthcoming.

The event was co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and Uruguay, the United States Mission, the Delegation of the European Union, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA)

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