Today in "Special Rights"

[Trigger warning for homophobia and violence]

So there's this story on the AP's tubes. And it's depressing. The events the story covers are depressing, but from my perspective, so is the story.

Here are the opening paragraphs of the story as of this writing:

"A culture war has broken out at the United Nations over whether gays should be singled out for the same protections as other minorities whose lives are threatened.

The battle will come to a head on Tuesday when the General Assembly votes to renew its routine condemnation of the unjustified killing of various categories of vulnerable people.

It specifies killings for racial, national, ethnic, religious or linguistic reasons and includes refugees, indigenous people and other groups. But the resolution, because of a change promoted by Arab and African nations and approved at committee level, this time around drops 'sexual orientation' and replaces it with 'discriminatory reasons on any basis.'" [Emphasis mine]

There's a difference between "making explicit" and 'singling out.' Singling out implies, well, singularity, uniqueness. 'Singling out' is part of the narrative of specialness, of special rights, of special, and therefore presumably undeserved and extraneous rights.

I can think of a variety of reasons for holding various positions on the wording of this particular resolution, (although IMO it's pretty clear that removing the reference to sexuality is a way to erase and ultimately justify violence against the sexually underprivileged). But that's not what's at issue here.

The UN resolution explicitly condemns the killing of members of a significant number of groups. Confusing the explicit inclusion of "[having a] sexual orientation [that society oppresses]" to a list of reasons the UN really abhors seeing people persecuted with a singling out of "gays" supports a culture that sees civil rights for LGBTQ people as extraneous.

And let's be clear about where we stand-- this resolution is about condemnation. If the UN can agree upon that, then maybe they'll be able to start discussing protection.