UNITED NATIONS – Ambassador Usman Sarki of Nigeria gave a stinging rebuke to the UN Secretary General and the UN bureaucracy in anticipation of the roll-out of a UN postage stamp celebrating homosexuality and transgenderism tomorrow.
Sarki invoked the UN Charter and made a plea that it is the Member States that run the UN, not the bureaucrats.
We are distressed and alarmed that the United Nations has adopted an activist stance on a matter that does not enjoy consensus – or, for that matter, majority support among all its member States. What is clear to many is that the UN has now decided without any reservation or hesitation to side with a minority of Member States and practitioners of this lifestyle, in complete disregard of the wishes and concerns of the majority of its member States and the populations that they represent.
As a response to the reluctance of the General Assembly to go along with the homosexual agenda, the UN Secretariat and various agencies have pushed the cause. The stamp is the latest in this skirmish. It was too much for Sarki.
He told a meeting of member states today, “It is in that regard that we wish to remind the UN to limit itself strictly to activities mandated by Member States and especially to promote issues that are beneficial to mankind rather than lend itself as tool to promote aberrant behavior under the guise of promoting human rights.”
“The UN should not take unilateral decisions on such sensitive matters that offend the sensibilities of the majority of its Member States, and contradict their religious beliefs, cultures, traditions and laws. If it must act in this fashion, the UN should promote issues that enjoy consensus and, at the same time, advance the dignity of people and their genuine human rights. In the light of this concern, we call upon the UN not to proceed with this event and to put an end to all processes that are currently in place in all its agencies, funds and programs, that promote and legitimize this tendency on which there is no consensus among member states,” he said.
The issues of homosexuality and transgenderism has gotten very little traction at the UN because they are supported by only a minority of the member states of the General Assembly, powerful ones to be sure, but nonetheless a minority. The language used to advance special rights for homosexuals and transsexuals is “sexual orientation and gender identity.” To date, the only document these have been used in is an annual General Assembly resolution condemning “summary execution” and “extra-judicial killing,” and even there it the issue was highly controversial and barely passed.
Sarki is asking for the stamp to be cancelled for which there is precedent at the UN. In 2007, a stamp was cancelled that got in the middle of a dispute between China and Taiwan.
With 182 million citizens, Nigeria is one of the most populous countries in the world. It is ethnically and religiously diverse with Muslims making up the majority but with Christians coming in a close second. It is frustrating to Nigeria and other countries that the UN Secretariat so often ignores the wishes and even the mandates of the General Assembly.
Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse.
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