Remember kids, there are no good Republicans

Check out this story from Reuters, the bold is mine. Note that our "liberal media" feels the need to say "legislators" as if it's a bipartisan thing. Apparently there are no Republicans that are disturbed by our voting for proposals supported by Iran, China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe. The statement at the end is another reminder of why I'm a big fan of today's Germany.

The Bush administration's support for Iran's proposal to bar two gay rights groups from a voice at the United Nations sparked a demand from U.S. legislators on Tuesday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repudiate the action.

The January 23 vote denying "consultative status" at the world body to the Belgium-based International Gay and Lesbian Association and the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians was a "drastic reversal" of Washington's previous stand on the issue, the U.S. House of Representatives members wrote.

Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents and speak at meetings of some U.N. bodies and conferences.

In voting for Iran's proposal, "the United States joined some of the world's most oppressive regimes, among them China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe" and demonstrated "a reprehensible inconsistency" in the protection of rights based on sexual orientation, the lawmakers said.

Among the 44 Democrats and one independent signing the letter were Democrats Eliot Engel of New York, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Tom Lantos of California, Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

They called on Rice to publicly repudiate the action and support pending applications by three other gay rights groups.

The vote occurred in the U.N. Economic and Social Council's Committee on Nongovernmental Organizations.

U.S. officials said the United States had opposed the Belgian group in January due to its previous ties to the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which condones pedophilia.

But the United States had voted in 2002 to approve U.N. ties to the group. At that time, a U.S. diplomat told the committee Washington was convinced it no longer condoned pedophilia and praised it for its life-saving activities in the struggle against
AIDS.

Despite U.S. support, the group failed to win enough votes to win consultative status in 2002, and the January 2006 vote had been its first chance since then to try again.

On January 23, the United States first abstained on a motion to deny a hearing to the two groups. That motion carried.

Washington then voted in favor of Iran's proposal to deny their applications, which carried 10-5 with three abstentions.

Following the vote, German envoy Martin Thuemmel said the committee decision "will haunt us for a long time" because it sent a message that it was acceptable to discriminate on the basis of an individual's sexual orientation.