GENEVA, March 22, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The budget committee of the United Nations met for a second tumultuous session Friday over a June decision by the Secretary-General to allow United Nations employees to have homosexual ‘spousal’ benefits. The vast majority of countries, led by Islamic and developing countries, spoke vehemently against the measure noting that their nations objected to funding such measures.
The arguments of defenders of traditional marriage, who warn that polygamy will follow directly from homosexual marriage, were given credibility as the world body admitted that, in addition to tacit recognition of homosexual marriage with the allowance of homosexual benefits, the UN also accepted polygamy. Sandra Haji-Ahmed, Officer-in-Charge of the Office of United Nations Human Resources Management, told Committee members, “Polygamous marriages are not questioned by the Organization when they were valid under the national laws of Member States. The Organization makes no value judgement on that type of marriage—it accepted it as a fact.” She explained that UN staff who were polygamous could have all their spouses receive benefits. Costa Rica and Canada were particularly intolerant of the concerns of the nearly 30 country delegates which voiced strenuous opposition to the homosexual benefits. Both Canada and Costa Rica, backed by the EU proposed that the discussions be moved to informal (non-public meetings) also suggesting that the concerns were completely unfounded and outside the jurisdiction of the budgetary committee. However, the Islamic countries were able to show that since the measure did involve some budgetary allotment it was within the committee’s purview. Moreover, Malaysia’s representative recalled that the debate on the topic four years ago rejected the proposal and questioned what had changed to make it the Secretary-General’s prerogative now?
Canadian representative Jerry Kramer intervened so many times that after one particularly sarcastic Kramer outburst, Egyptian representative Mr. Roshdy interjected with a point of order saying Canada had no business responding to his comments since Canada was not referred to in his statement.
Malaysian representative Ms. Abdul Aziz was particularly effective in defeating the points made by Canada’s Kramer, perhaps too effective. Near the end of the meeting, Kramer formally rejected the comments made by Malaysia and then offered a revealing glimpse into Canada’s promotion of homosexuality.
Kramer implied that while Canada does not tell other countries to allow things like homosexual benefits or abortion, it does use United Nations treaties and agreements to force these measures on other countries since Canada considers them human rights and considers itself the defender of the human rights of all peoples throughout the world. Canada, said Kramer, “does not preach bilaterally to others about their social policy, or what kind of visions of family they should have. Canada does, however, act to defend human rights and uses the multilateral instruments available to do so.” Kramer failed to add that the Canadian government sees homosexual benefits and abortion as human rights. See the UN press release on the meeting: https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/gaab3608.doc.htm See LifeSiteNews.com’s related coverage of the first meeting: Homosexual Activism Pits Third World and Vatican against UN Secretariat, Canada and EU https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/mar/04031603.html