Hilary Clinton speaks up for gay rights

{jcomments off}Hilary Clinton, the USA’s Secretary of State, has delivered a ground-breaking speech on gay rights to the United Nations.

Clinton’s speech to the UN, at a summit in Geneva, comes after America announced that its agencies will challenge the criminalisation of gay acts overseas. The move by America is seen as vitally important given the rise of homophobic regimes in several countries especially in Africa where, last week, Nigeria voted to ban gay marriage.

In the speech delivered in Geneva, to the United Nations, Hilary Clinton spoke out about gay rights proclaiming LGBT people were ‘human beings born free and bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time’.

Alluding to the rise of homophobic regimes in parts of the world – and claims that homosexuality doesn’t exist in some countries – Clinton told the summit ‘Some seem to believe it is a western phenomenon and therefore people outside the west have grounds to reject it. Well, in reality gay people are born into and belong to every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths, they are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes. Whether we know it, whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends and our neighbours. Being gay is not a western invention, it is a human reality.’

Hilary Clinton’s speech has been welcomed by LGBT rights groups. Clinton has been a supporter of LGBT rights for some time; she supported the repeal of America’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and also the introduction of Civil Unions. Her stance on same-sex marriage is less clear though but there is a feeling that she “secretly supports it” as The Advocate puts it.

(via Pink News)