LGBTQ/NIKKI HALEY/UN: “After siding with countries such as Saudi Arabia, Botswana and Qatar, Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is denying that the U.S. voted in favor of the death penalty for gay people.
The United Nations’ Human Rights Council voted 27-13 last week to condemn capital punishment in a variety of cases including against those in same sex relationships, though the U.S. was not in a majority.
While seven countries also abstained from the vote, Haley’s delegation voted against the measure along with other death penalty countries such as China.
Beyond condemning the state killing of LGBTQ people, the resolution also stood against the execution of those who were children at the time of the crime and called for study about racial bias in the death penalty, a frequent criticism of capital punishment in the U.S.
The vote gained renewed attention Tuesday after the Human Rights Campaign said that the Trump administration had shown a ‘blatant disregard’ for the lives of gay people around the world…
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had told reporters earlier in the day saying that the U.S. condemns executions for and the criminalization of homosexuality, and that suggestions to the contrary are ‘misleading.’
She said that the U.S. voted against the resolution because of its support for the legal death penalty, adding that it had hoped for a ‘balanced and inclusive’ resolution rather than one that said capital punishment is a human rights violation.”
-Christopher Brennan, “Nikki Haley says U.S. did not vote for gay death penalty,” New York Daily News, Oct. 4, 2017 01:29am