Human Rights Day and Sullivan's Hypocrisy

Yesterday was International Human Rights Day and the theme was "Embrace Diversity, End Discrimination." So Mayor Dan Sullivan - who vetoed an LGBT non-discrimination ordinance passed by the Anchorage Assembly - proclaimed Thursday as Human Rights Day, quoting the "everyone-except-gays" anti-discrimination law as proof that he is committed to "civil and human rights for all Anchorage residents and visitors..."

WTF??

The Anchorage Human Rights Day proclamation touts the straights-only anti-discrimination law, proclaims the day, and ends with the message that the mayor "encourage(s) all residents to work together in the coming year on ways that we can achieve greater progress in respecting, protecting, and fulfilling the full range of human rights contained in the Universal Declaration."

... so he can veto them?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 and did not include sexual orientation or gender identity. That explains why the mayor respects not the full range of human rights but the full range contained in the Declaration. Clever... and hypocritical.

But the official Human Rights Day statement does include gays.

The statement begins with the sentence, "The concept of non-discrimination lies at the heart of human rights." UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay lists the successes first, the international laws and treaties on non-discrimination which protect people throughout the world. Then Pillay describes the discrimination we still need to address, against women, indigenous people, racial and ethnic groups, religious groups, refugees and migrants. Gays and lesbians are named in the conclusion, which also describes the harmful effects of discrimination on society and closes with a call to action to help end discrimination (from someone who has not recently vetoed a non-discrimination ordinance and thus has credibility on the issue):

"Many other groups face discrimination to a greater or lesser degree. Some of them are easily definable such as persons with disabilities, stateless people, gays and lesbians, members of particular castes and the elderly. Others may span several different groups and find themselves discriminated against on several different levels as a result.

Those who are not discriminated against often find it hard to comprehend the suffering and humiliation that discrimination imposes on their fellow individual human beings. Nor do they always understand the deeply corrosive effect it has on society at large.

Discrimination feeds mistrust, resentment, violence, crime and insecurity and makes no economic sense, since it reduces productivity. It has no beneficial aspects for society whatsoever. Yet we continue to practice it – virtually all of us – often as a casual reflex, without even realizing what we are doing.

I would therefore like to encourage people everywhere – politicians, officials, businesses leaders, civil society, national human rights institutions, the media, religious leaders, teachers, students, and each and every individual – to honour Human Rights Day 2009 by embracing diversity and resolving to take concrete and lasting actions to help put an end to discrimination."

In support of Human Rights Day, a new Yale study shows that gay people suffer more anxiety and depression in states with fewer gay rights. The American Journal of Public Health reported that LGBT people living in states that don't have LGBT-inclusive protections suffer higher rates of psychiatric conditions such as anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

The study concludes: "Policies that reduce discrimination against gays and lesbians are urgently needed to protect the health and well-being of this population." More proof for why we need to pass ENDA.

For a brief moment, I wondered if Mayor Sullivan was making proclamations like Human Rights Day and November's Say No to Bullies Month as a trojan horse strategy to get the social conservatives more comfortable with the idea of civil rights and reduce the tension around gay issues so they won't blow up the federal building in downtown Anchorage when the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is repealed. But sadly, it's more likely a cheap strategy to tell the racial and ethnic minority groups that he is willing to give lip service to their rights (no real power, of course, just empty tokens of appreciation) in exchange for their votes on a second term as mayor... where he will continue to oppose our rights.

Happy Human Rights Day, Anchorage.