@Jason287:
There are a few possible explanations for this that go deeper than just “the U.S. won’t publicly support LGBT people.” There’s a clause in there condemning the execution of mentally ill people—executions the U.S. carries out on a routine basis. But the more likely explanation is that our good pals in Saudi Arabia objected specifically to the resolution. It’s one of ten countries where same-sex relations are still punishable by death, and it’s not just an obsolete old law that remains on the books—two transgender people were recently tortured to death by Saudi police. (Also worth reading—this Atlantic piece on homosexuality in Saudi Arabia.)
Saudi Arabia, along with Russia and Egypt, tried to introduce amendments that would “dilute” the impact of the resolution, but these were voted down. (The U.S. supported or abstained from each amendment.) The U.S. has a longstanding strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia, who, along with Israel, is our best ally in the Middle East. Per Nicholas Kristoff in the NYTimes, Saudi Arabia is currently conducting a “war” that amounts to a series of heinous war crimes—the purposeful bombing and starvation of civilians among them—with the support and weaponry of the United States, and we’ve turned a blind eye to their domestic civil rights abuses for a long time.
There’s another explanation, which is that the U.S. simply didn’t want to vote for any bill that criticizes the death penalty in any way. But that would be strange, since although the resolution “recognized” that many states found the death penalty to be a form of torture, it didn’t call for outright abolition—just a humane application in those nations where it still existed.
Regardless of the true reason behind the vote, it’s yet another callous shoulder-shrug by a representative of the Trump administration toward a minority group in the United States.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/10/the-un-floated-a-resolution-condemning-the-death-p.html
The headlines derived from that story were really misleading giving the impression that the US was okay with extending the death penalty for homosexuals. That feeds the current narrative about the Trump administration.
If you go online and actually read the resolution, you'll see that it condemns the death penalty itself and describes it as a form of torture. THAT is why the US and Japan didn't sign it. That six countries still execute people because they are gay had nothing to do with why several countries chose not to sign. To me, the resolution was an attempt to shame countries into abolishing capital punishment and using a UN resolution in that manner is wrong.
