Peter Burleigh, an out gay foreign affairs officer, has been named to the top diplomatic post in India until a permanent ambassador is selected. According to GayPolitics.com, he has a “deep expertise in South Asian affairs” and came out within the State Department once they stopped treating gay people as security risks in 1990.  See Gay US Ambassador to India

Gay City News

An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize pedophilia and other “deplorable acts.”

The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration “challenges existing human rights norms.”

The declaration, sponsored by France with broad support in Europe and Latin America, condemned human rights violations based on homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal declaration of human rights.

“How can we tolerate the fact that people are stoned, hanged, decapitated and tortured only because of their sexual orientation?” said Rama Yade, the French state secretary for human rights, noting that homosexuality is banned in nearly 80 countries and subject to the death penalty in at least six.

France decided to use the format of a declaration because it did not have the support for an official resolution. Read out by Ambassador Jorge Argüello of Argentina, the declaration was the first on gay rights read in the 192-member General Assembly itself.

Although laws against homosexuality are concentrated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, more than one speaker addressing a separate conference on the declaration noted that the laws stemmed as much from the British colonial past as from religion or tradition.

 See In a First, Gay Rights Are Pressed at the UN
New York Times, United States - .
UN (But Not the US) Comes Out Big for Gay Rights Village Voice
UN split over gay law reform call Queensland Pride
Coalition asks UN to decriminalize homosexuality AFP

US balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws The Associated Press
UN Splits On Gay Rights Issue On Top Magazine
UN’s first look at gay rights gets mixed results SmartBrief

The Prime Minister of Nepal has instructed his country’s UN Ambassador to support an oral statement on the universal rights of all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. See Nepal commits to support for LGBT rights statement at UN PinkNews.co.uk