U.S. Votes No on U.N. Resolution Banning the Use of the Death Penalty for LGBTQers, Then Lies about It

Let's admit it. Republicans are the Party of Death.

WTF, WTF, WTF, Nikki Haley.

There is no reason to deny it anymore. The Republicans support the Culture of Death in America and around the world.

The U.S. State Department responded Tuesday to questions as to why it opposed a United Nations resolution that condemns the discriminatory use of the death penalty, such as in cases of adultery and same-sex relations. Spokesperson Heather Nauert said the U.S. had “broader concerns” about the resolutions language regarding the death penalty.

“As our representative to the Human Rights Council said last Friday, the United States is disappointed to have voted against that resolution,” Hauert said at a press briefing Tuesday. “We voted against that resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances, and it called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether. We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully as the United States does.”

In other words, the U.S. voted no because the U.N. resolution contains language that expresses hope that the world will eventually turn away from the use of the death penalty, but that kind of sentiment is abhorrent to the U.S. The fact that a section containing a recommendation that homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates be free from the death penalty was added this year was not relevant.

Then through a State Department tweet and a couple by Nikki Haley, the U.S. lies openly about its history with this vote, which has been taken routinely since 2007.

Fact: There was NO vote by USUN that supported the death penalty for gay people. We have always fought for justice for the LGBT community.

— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) October 4, 2017

Fact: The vote that took place in Geneva is the same US vote that took place under the Obama admin. It was not a vote against LGBT #Fact

— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) October 4, 2017

 Both tweets are lies. The first inverts the meaning of the vote: a failure to vote against a resolution that condemns the use of the death penalty is a vote FOR the death penalty. And clearly the Trump administration has a record, along with the Republican Party, of general hostility to LBGTQ rights.

The second tweet fails to point out that the LBGTQ language was added for the first time this year and that the Obama administration didtn't vote no, it abstained on a vote only about the death penalty, which continues to be legal in most of the U.S.

Do check the threads for each tweet, and read about this vote and the lies about it here, here, and here. And, by the way, the only other countries to vote no were Saudi Arabia and Iraq. As Trump might say, Great Allies!