magullo — Mon, 17 Jun 2002 06:08:42 -0800

Now I've seen it all: The Islamic-Christian alliance (with wholehearted Bush support) "We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends," said Austin Ruse, founder and president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes conservative values at U.N. social conferences. "We have realized that without countries like Sudan [Iraq, Iran and Libya], abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document."

Liberal Western activists and governments, added Mokhtar Lamani, a Moroccan diplomat who represents the 53-nation Organization of Islamic Conferences at the United Nations, had offended the religious and cultural sensitivities of Islamic countries by proposing that a final conference declaration include explicit references to the need to protect prostitutes, intravenous drug users and "men who have sex with men" from contracting AIDS.

The Bush administration led the coalition in blocking an effort by European and Latin American countries at the U.N. children's meeting last month to include a reference in the final declaration to "reproductive health care services," a term the conservatives believed could be used to promote abortion.

"This alliance shows the depths of perversity of the [U.S.] position," said Adrienne Germaine, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "On the one hand we're presumably blaming these countries for unspeakable acts of terrorism, and at the same time we are allying ourselves with them in the oppression of women."

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