From gwyn@annwfn.indstate.edu  Wed Sep 28 12:43:08 1994
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 11:43:30 -0500 (GMT-0500)

 PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 SHOCKING AND UNFAIR, SAYS ILGA, SILENCED GAY-LESBIAN WORLD VOICE AT THE UN.

On September 16, the United Nations's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 
was hurriedly convened at the request of the U.S. government.

At the meeting the consultative status of International Lesbian and Gay 
Association (ILGA) - a world-wide umbrella organization with several hundred 
member groups - was suspended.

ECOSOC thus escaped a threatened cutback in US funding by
succumbing to a provision not enacted by the UN itself, but by the US Senate 
on a proposal from Sen. Jesse Helms, namely that all ECOSOC-affiliated 
organizations must prove that they have no pro-pedophile member groups.

The US government had received anonymous information about an ILGA member 
group, the VSG in Munich, Germany, that alleged that the VSG is a pedophile 
group.

"We are shocked ", says Julie Dorf, U.S. activist and ILGA board member, 
"that after almost an entire year of good faith communication between us and 
US government representatives, they went ahead with a resolution to the 
ECOSOC for suspension without giving ILGA any opportunity to deal with this 
last-minute, new information they had dug up."

Under the Helms Amendment, the US Administration would have
had to certify to congress by Sept. 30 that ILGA no longer has pro-pedophile 

member groups, less allocations for UN purposes be severely reduced.

"In the face of the upcoming elections, the Clinton Administration made a 
choice to capitulate to Jesse Helms' blackmail rather than to stand up for 
our rights. In the process, they exposed the ECOSOC to the same blackmailing 
tactics and they have given our enemies inside ECOSOC, and outside, fresh 
ammunition," comments Norwegian Hans Hjerpekjon, ILGA's Co-Secretary 
General.}

 "A few hours before the decision, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Ms. Madeline 
Albright called me to assure me of her governments pro-gay-and-lesbian 
sentiments in general. In spite that, and although the US no longer casts 
any doubts about ILGA's own pedophile positions, I have to warn her that 
suspending us under a cloud of blackmail may prove a lot easier than to lift 
the supension, given to the forces they have now unleashed and foddered.

Holding Ms. Albright to her words, I call upon her to play an active part in 
securing that the ECOSOC process for ILGA's eventual re-instatement be 
reasonable and
just."

 NAMBLA, a US pedophile group which was expelled by ILGA this
summer, has produced a "spoiler" press release on the events. Gloating over
ILGA's suspension, they make it a proof that the expulsion of NAMBLA was in
vain. This completely overlooks that for many, many ILGA members the UN 
consultative status was just an additional reason for wanting NAMBLA out of 
ILGA, indeed ILGA debate over NAMBLA membership and pedophilia has been 
on-going for years, long before any ILGA UN status was even conceivable.

For further comments : Hans Hjerpekjon + 47 33 31 05 71 and in
the US : Julie Dorph + 1 415 255 8680.