U.N. passes LGBT Rights Resolution

Last Friday, the Human Rights council of the United Nations passed an LGBT rights resolution 25-14 with seven abstentions. According to Buzzfeed, the proposal set out “calling for a report from the U.N. high commissioner for human rights on combating human rights violations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

This is one of the few instances where the U.N. has voted that LGBT rights are fundamental human rights, and this decision is widely viewed as a win for LGBT advocates.

Opponents of the decision, led by Egypt and other Islamic nations fought the proposal, claiming an attack on Islam and an inundation of cultural imperialism.

Several of the countries that chose to abstain were from Africa, which showed a kind of acquiescence to the “yes” decision, while steadfast opponents outright voted “no.”

The proposal originally asked for the report to be produced every two years, but the language had changed over negotiations and the language that passed the vote stated that the report needed to be generated only once.