IV 
108TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 330
Expressing the concern of Congress regarding human rights violations com-
mitted against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered (LGBT) 
individuals around the world based on their real or perceived sexual 
orientation or gender identity. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 19, 2003
Mr. LANTOS (for himself, Mr. SHAYS, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. GEP-
HARDT, Mr. KUCINICH, Mr. MORAN of Virginia, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. 
PALLONE, Mr. MATSUI, Ms. NORTON, Ms. LEE, Mr. ABERCROMBIE, Mr. 
MCNULTY, Mr. DELAHUNT, Mr. ENGEL, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. MCGOV-
ERN, Mr. BERMAN, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. GEORGE MILLER of Cali-
fornia, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania, Mr. 
CROWLEY, Mr. EVANS, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, Ms. MILLENDER-
MCDONALD, Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. WEINER, Mrs. MALONEY, Ms. 
WOOLSEY, Mr. FROST, Mr. STARK, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. FILNER, Mr. ALLEN, 
Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. OLVER, Mr. WEXLER, Mr. SANDERS, Ms. MCCOL-
LUM, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. GONZALEZ, Mr. OWENS, Ms. BALDWIN, and 
Ms. MAJETTE) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was 
referred to the Committee on International Relations 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Expressing the concern of Congress regarding human rights 
violations 
committed 
against 
lesbians, 
gay 
men, 
bisexuals, and transgendered (LGBT) individuals around 
the world based on their real or perceived sexual orienta-
tion or gender identity.
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
concurring),
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This concurrent resolution may be cited as the 
‘‘International Human Rights Equality Resolution’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) International treaties, conventions, and dec-
larations to which the United States is a party es-
tablish binding government obligations to combat 
international human rights violations, and the over-
all goals and compliance with the standards of these 
treaties, conventions, and declarations are an inte-
gral part of United States domestic and foreign pol-
icy. 
(2) Articles 3 and 5 of the 1948 Universal Dec-
laration of Human Rights and Articles 6, 7, and 9 
of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Po-
litical Rights guarantee all individuals the right to 
life, liberty, and security of person, and guarantee 
that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, 
inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, 
and the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other 
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punish-
ment reinforces the commitment of countries to pre-
vent torture within their jurisdictions. 
(3) Articles 2 and 7 of the Universal Declara-
tion of Human Rights and Articles 2, 14, and 26 of
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the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights guarantee all individuals freedom from arbi-
trary discrimination and equal protection before the 
law. 
(4) Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Dec-
laration of Human Rights and Articles 19 and 22 of 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights guarantee all individuals freedom of expres-
sion and association. 
(5) On April 24, 2003, the United States voted 
for United Nations Human Rights Commission Res-
olution 2003/53, which in section 5 ‘‘[r]eaffirms the 
obligation of States to ensure the protection of the 
inherent right to life of all persons under their juris-
diction and calls upon States concerned to inves-
tigate promptly and thoroughly all cases of killings 
committed in the name of passion or in the name of 
honour, all killings committed for any discriminatory 
reason, including sexual orientation’’. 
(6) The Amici Curiae brief filed with the 
United States Supreme Court in the case of Law-
rence v. Texas (2003) by Mary Robinson, the former 
United Nations High Commissioner for Human 
Rights, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights 
Watch, Interights, Lawyers Committee for Human
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Rights, and Minnesota Advocates for Human 
Rights, authoritatively lays out the globally accepted 
protections of privacy and equal protection under 
international and foreign national laws. Specifically, 
the brief establishes that international courts and 
treaty bodies have construed the equal treatment 
provisions of almost every major international 
human rights treaty to ban discrimination based on 
sexual orientation. 
(7) While full equal protection and an end to all 
discrimination of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and 
transgendered individuals have not been achieved in 
the United States, Justice Kennedy, writing for the 
majority in Lawrence v. Texas, cited the Robinson 
brief and upheld those international principals. 
(8) The fundamental human right not to be ar-
bitrarily deprived of life is violated when lesbians, 
gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals 
(hereafter referred to as ‘‘LGBT individuals’’) are 
victims of extra judicial, summary, and arbitrary 
executions for consensual adult same sex relations 
by state and non-state actors with impunity in coun-
tries such as Guatemala, Chile, Honduras and El 
Salvador.
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(9) The fundamental human right not to be ar-
bitrarily deprived of life is further threatened when 
countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania, 
and Iran call for the possible execution of those con-
victed of consensual adult same sex relations. 
(10) The fundamental right not to be subjected 
to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading 
treatment is violated when the criminal laws in a 
number of countries such as Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, 
and Iran sanction corporal punishment including 
whipping and flogging and other forms of torture for 
individuals convicted of consensual adult same sex 
relations. 
(11) The fundamental right not to be subjected 
to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading 
treatment is violated when LGBT individuals are 
subjected to severe beatings while in police custody 
in countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Nepal and 
Uganda, and individuals in these groups are also 
routinely the victims of human rights abuses, such 
as extortion, entrapment, physical assaults, and 
rape, committed by the security officials in Egypt, 
Zimbabwe, and Ecuador, among other countries. 
(12) The fundamental right not to be subjected 
to arbitrary discrimination and arrest is violated in
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countries such as Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Uganda, 
and Kuwait, when their penal laws criminalize same-
sex behavior between consenting adults. 
(13) The fundamental rights not to be sub-
jected to arbitrary discrimination and arrest are fur-
ther violated when countries such as Egypt maintain 
deliberately vague laws which penalize offences such 
as ‘‘habitual debauchery’’ and the vagueness of these 
laws makes their enforcement difficult to monitor. 
(14) The fundamental rights of freedom of ex-
pression and association are violated when countries 
deny the right of LGBT individuals to form organi-
zations or advocate for their rights or to threaten in-
dividuals who have expressed intentions to do so. 
The Government of Zambia has threatened individ-
uals of the Zambian Lesbian, Gay and Transgender 
Association (LEGATRA) with arrest, members of 
the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) have 
also been threatened and also brutally assaulted, and 
nongovernmental LGBT advocacy organizations in 
Namibia were harassed and threatened by the gov-
ernment. 
(15) In some countries, agents of the govern-
ment are directing or are complicitous in abuses 
committed on the basis of sexual orientation and
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gender identity, and investigation and prosecution of 
those agents for these violations of international law 
often do not occur. Due to the failure by govern-
ments to investigate and prosecute human rights 
violations based on sexual orientation and gender 
identity, private individuals feel encouraged to at-
tack violently LGBT individuals with impunity, con-
tributing to an atmosphere of fear and intimidation 
for LGBT individuals. 
(16) The human rights violations that lesbian 
and bisexual women suffer because of their real or 
perceived sexual identity are particularly vitriolic be-
cause of their gender, and, moreover, the aggravated 
abuse of these women often goes unreported because 
of their gender. 
SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY. 
Congress—
(1) condemns all violations of internationally 
recognized human rights norms based on the real or 
perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of an 
individual; 
(2) recognizes that the protection of sexual ori-
entation and gender identity is not a special cat-
egory of human rights, but is fully embedded in the 
overall human rights norms set forth in international
•HCON 330 IH 
law, including the international conventions to which 
the United States is a party; 
(3) affirms that human rights abuses abroad 
based on sexual orientation and gender identity 
should be punished without discrimination and clas-
sified as crimes and that such violations should be 
given the same consideration and concern as human 
rights abuses based on other grounds; 
(4) commends the United Nations and non-
governmental human rights organizations, including 
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and 
the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights 
Commission, for documenting the ongoing abuses of 
human rights on the basis of sexual orientation and 
gender identity; and 
(5) calls on the Department of State to con-
tinue to improve its documentation of human rights 
abuses on the basis of sexual orientation and gender 
identity, to give such violations the same consider-
ation and concern as all other human rights abuses, 
and to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat 
such abuses abroad.
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