Putin wants gay marriage out of UN

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Foreign Policy

Russia Tries to Block Benefits for Families of Gay U.N. Employees
BY COLUM LYNCH




MARCH 2, 2015 - 6:52 PMCOLUM.LYNCH@COLUMLYNCHfacebooktwittergoogle-plusredditemail
Russia Tries to Block Benefits for Families of Gay U.N. Employees


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Last June, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a far-reaching administrative ruling that offered marital benefits for the first time to all of the United Nations’ lesbian and gay employees, as well as to other U.N. workers who had entered legally recognized domestic partnerships. On Monday, March 2, Russia gave the plan a resounding nyet.

Speaking Monday morning at a meeting of the U.N.’s main budget committee, Russian diplomat Sergey Khalizov demanded that Ban reverse his decision on the matter, saying the U.N. chief’s action violated a U.N. General Assembly resolution that left it to U.N. employees’ governments to determine whether are eligible for spousal benefits. Moscow has been weighing whether to force a vote in the budget committee, known as the Fifth Committee, to halt funding such benefits, a vote that it likely could win. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, the United States and other big powers don’t have the power to veto votes in the Fifth Committee. While its decisions are generally made by consensus, states can call for a vote.

“We will insist that the secretary-general urgently revoke the administrative bulletin” expanding benefits to same-sex couples, the Russian diplomat told the committee.“We will insist that the secretary-general urgently revoke the administrative bulletin” expanding benefits to same-sex couples, the Russian diplomat told the committee.

“For us it is a very important issue,” Russia’s spokesman Alexey Zaytsev told Foreign Policy in an email. “We would prefer to make a decision…by consensus but if some delegations do not demonstrate a constructive approach to the concerns raised by us and shared by many other member states, then we’ll have no other choice but to call for a vote.”

Russia’s critics characterized the gambit as a cynical political maneuver aimed at checking the authority of a U.N. leader who has clashed with Moscow over its policies from Syria to Ukraine. Russia has transformed what is by all accounts a low-priority administrative dispute into a high-profile power struggle with the U.N. leader.

Russia “is looking for any excuse to curtail the U.N. secretary-general’s authority,” said Jessica Stern, the executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. “It’s no secret that the secretary-general and Russia have been at cross-purposes over Ukraine and Syria, and the Russians have found the perfect political vehicle for attacking him.”

Philippe Bolopion, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch, said U.N. member states “should push back hard against Russia’s backwards efforts to impose on the U.N. the same kind of homophobic attitudes Moscow promotes at home.”

The Russian move comes several weeks after its diplomats distributed a memo, known as an aide-mémoire, to all U.N. members arguing that Ban’s action “violates the sovereign rights of members states to determine the legal framework of [the] life of their citizens.” Moscow said the move would make U.N. states that do not recognize same-sex marriages liable for the costs of some of those additional benefits and increase the likelihood of fraud. Under the new arrangement, according to the Russian memo, “each staff member who is not married can easily register sham traditional or same-sex marriage and can get additional dependency allowances.”

The European Union and the United States challenged the Russian position, saying the U.N. secretary-general had the authority to extend benefits for employees in domestic partnerships without seeking the approval of U.N. member states. “The secretary-general, as the head of this organization, has broad authority to manage U.N. staff under his authority, and we will protect his prerogatives in this manner,” Isobel Coleman, the U.S. representative to the United Nations for management and reform, told the U.N. budget committee Monday. “This should not be a forum for member states to undermine essential rights with respect to race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

U.N. officials say the Russian initiative, were it to succeed, could have an impact well beyond same-sex marriages, risking benefits for children adopted in a foreign country.

The U.N. first tackled benefits for same-sex couples in January 2004, when then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued an administrative order, known as a bulletin, that extended benefits to spouses in “domestic partnerships” as long as the union was considered legal in the staff member’s country.

The decision drew protests from conservative states, including the Vatican, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (now called the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation), a bloc consisting of 56 Islamic countries. They pressured the U.N. to reissue a new bulletin, stripping out any references to domestic partnerships and reinforcing the need for a U.N. employee to secure his or her government’s approval to receive spousal benefits.

The new bulletin, adopted in September 2004, still allowed U.N. employees from countries where same-sex marriage was legal to receive benefits for their spouses. But it gave conservative countries a virtual veto over their nationals’ ability to receive such benefits, even if they were married in a place like New York or Paris, where same-sex marriage is recognized by the state.

The arrangement, according to U.N. officials, proved inherently discriminatory, denying benefits to U.N. employees who had the misfortune of being born in countries where same-sex marriage is outlawed. U.N. lawyers also feared it would set the stage for legal challenges within the organization. In June, Ban sought to rectify the situation, issuing a new bulletin that took the exclusive power to determine an employee’s eligibility for benefits out of the hands of his or her government. Instead, the U.N. will now look to the “competent authority” — that is, the city, country, or church or synagogue — that recognized the domestic partnership in the first place.

Russia, which has taken a harsher stance on gay rights under President Vladimir Putin, has only recently joined the fight, according to U.N. officials and human rights groups. In its memo, Russia raised concern about the “financial and legal implications” of the U.N.’s policy. But an internal U.N. review turned up only one case since Ban issued his administrative ruling last June in which a U.N. employee claimed benefits for a same-sex marriage, according to a senior U.N. official.

Photo credit: David McNew/AFP/Getty Images

Correction, March 2, 2015: Jessica Stern is executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. An earlier version of this article mistakenly called the organization the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Council.

That shuffling sound you hear is civil rights being treated as poker chips for the newest round between the US, Russia, and the UN.

[Grumman]

Moscow said the move would make U.N. states that do not recognize same-sex marriages liable for the costs of some of those additional benefits and increase the likelihood of fraud. Under the new arrangement, according to the Russian memo, “each staff member who is not married can easily register sham traditional or same-sex marriage and can get additional dependency allowances.”

If we were talking about polygamy and not same-sex marriage, this wouldn't be a completely fucking stupid argument. Limiting someone to one and not fifty sham marriages does reduce their ability to commit fraud. Limiting their sham marriage to only half the population does not.

[K. A. Pital]

Orthodox Taliban strikes again!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Part of the problem, Stas, you have to admit, was that the communist government took a totally unreasonable and sometimes ridiculous attitude to homosexuality (evidence of bourgeoisie depravity!) and sent people to the camps for it, later to mental hospitals. This attitude didn't chance before the fall of the Soviet Union like it did it in the western left, so really when the "democratic" era started in Russia, both right and left were against homosexuality. In that environment what happened in what was in ancient times a fairly tolerant country became sadly inevitable.

[K. A. Pital]

I do readily admit this, it was completely stupid and out of touch with reality to restore this bullshit to the penal code in the 1930s and let the naturally conservative part of the population relish their dark-age prejudice. I would presume that it was Stalin's influence, he was a big fan of the British Empire, which penalized homosexuality wherever its political power reached. But it would have never been possible without the deep tradition of homophobia in the general population.

What happens how, however, is completely fuelled by the Orthodox. Had they not gained so much power internally over the latest decades, it would have been absolutely impossible to imagine something like the recent laws or the Pussy Riot case.

It would've helped to have more progressive rulers, yes. And the last time Russia was tolerant to homosexuals... well, except for rather short periods in the 1990s and a likewise short period in 1922-1930, I would have to reach very, very far back.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I do readily admit this, it was completely stupid and out of touch with reality to restore this bullshit to the penal code in the 1930s and let the naturally conservative part of the population relish their dark-age prejudice. I would presume that it was Stalin's influence, he was a big fan of the British Empire, which penalized homosexuality wherever its political power reached. But it would have never been possible without the deep tradition of homophobia in the general population.

What happens how, however, is completely fuelled by the Orthodox. Had they not gained so much power internally over the latest decades, it would have been absolutely impossible to imagine something like the recent laws or the Pussy Riot case.

It would've helped to have more progressive rulers, yes. And the last time Russia was tolerant to homosexuals... well, except for rather short periods in the 1990s and a likewise short period in 1922-1930, I would have to reach very, very far back.

By ancient times I meant before Prince Vladimir, sorry; the Norse attitudes were predominant for a while, and by the standards of the day, that was good. Though of course the upper classes of the 19th century were tolerant, that was true of most of the European upper class, in Germany and Britain as well; the only place it wasn't was in the Catholic countries. One of the most profound lessons we can learn about Russia in any case is how desperately tenuous secularisation is. Nobody will ever dare speak of the inevitability of the death of religion again unless they are a fool. The moment crisis hits, the moment the social situation begins to be reversed, a few embers will turn back into a forest fire in a heartbeat.