Nikki Haley says U.S. did not vote for gay death penalty

[GMDino]

Surprise twist spoiler:  She did.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nikki-haley-u-s-not-vote-gay-death-penalty-article-1.3539883

Quote:After siding with countries such as Saudi Arabia, Botswana and Qatar, Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is denying that the U.S. voted in favor of the death penalty for gay people.


The United Nations' Human Rights Council voted 27-13 last week to condemn capital punishment in a variety of cases including against those in same sex relationships, though the U.S. was not in a majority.


While seven countries also abstained from the vote, Haley's delegation voted against the measure along with other death penalty countries such as China.


Beyond condemning the state killing of LGBTQ people, the resolution also stood against the execution of those who were children at the time of the crime and called for study about racial bias in the death penalty, a frequent criticism of capital punishment in the U.S.

The vote gained renewed attention Tuesday after the Human Rights Campaign said that the Trump administration had shown a "blatant disregard" for the lives of gay people around the world.


"Ambassador Haley has failed the LGBTQ community by not standing up against the barbaric use of the death penalty to punish individuals in same-sex relationships," the organization's Ty Cobb said.
Susan Rice, Ambassador to the UN under Barack Obama, said "shame on US!" in reaction to the vote.

"I was proud to lead U.S. efforts at UN to protect LGBTQ people, back in the day when America stood for human rights for all," she said.

Haley later took issue with her critics on Twitter, saying "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."


State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had told reporters earlier in the day saying that the U.S. condemns executions for and the criminalization of homosexuality, and that suggestions to the contrary are "misleading."


She said that the U.S. voted against the resolution because of its support for the legal death penalty, adding that it had hoped for a "balanced and inclusive" resolution rather than one that said capital punishment is a human rights violation.


A statement from the U.S. at the time of the vote explaining the decision did not include any language about the protection of same-sex people, juveniles or minorities.


The U.S. has executed 18 people this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.



An Amnesty International report said that the U.S. had the seventh most executions in the world last year, between Egypt and Somalia.

[Belsnickel]

This is being made into a death penalty for LGBT people, but this was likely more about the death penalty for children situation. We are a country that has that option available.

Edit: Correction, apparently this was overturned over a decade ago. I wasn't paying enough attention to the news then. So I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt on this one, but I have no idea what the rationale was.

[BmorePat87]

It was one piece of the resolution, but I really didn't see anything in it we'd particularly disagree with. Even for states with the death penalty, it just called upon them to ensure that the rights of the accused were honored and to look at data on who is killed.