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In bad company
A Times Editorial
Published January 30, 2006
The Bush administration finally has found some common ground with Iran. Unfortunately, it's not over Iran's nuclear capabilities. In a shared moment of intolerance, the United States is supporting a recommendation by the Islamic fundamentalist state to bar two gay rights groups from participating at the United Nations.
Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have been granted consultative status at the United Nations' Economic and Social Council. This allows groups to distribute information at the council's meetings. But the United States sided with Iran's move to deny that courtesy to the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians or the International Lesbian and Gay Association, based in Belgium.
Along with Iran, the United States is siding with such antigay countries as Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe. You can tell a lot about a country's leadership by decisions it figures nobody will notice - and by the company it keeps.
President Bush proclaims that the mission of the United States is to spread freedom and democracy around the world, but the caveat is that freedom should be reserved for preferred groups. No one who sympathizes with those Brokeback Mountain cowboys - a movie the president has decidedly declared he does not plan to see - need apply.
[Last modified January 30, 2006, 00:32:10]
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