What does the United States, one of the most powerful countries on earth, have in common with Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Sudan and Zimbabwe?

I’ll save you the head-scratching.

The U.S. sided with these countries in voting against allowing two gay and lesbian groups to join a United Nations (U.N.) forum.

America, supposedly the world’s biggest defender of freedom and democracy, shamefully allied itself with another “champion” of human rights — Iran — in order to silence queer voices.

Late last month, the U.S. supported a recommendation by Iran that “consultative status” — a harmless but formal nod already given to 3,000 groups — not be given to two associations seeking this status at the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

“Consultative Status” would have allowed the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians, as well as the Belgium-based International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), to distribute documents, host meetings and occasionally speak.

The U.S. and Iran, along with the aforementioned countries, felt that circulating paper and ideas was so dangerously subversive that it had to be halted immediately.

An American official defended the move, saying it was because of ILGA’s past. But this doesn’t explain why the Danish group was shut out.

Over ten years ago, ILGA was booted out of ECOSOC. At the time, there was a debate raging within ILGA about one of its member groups, the North American Man/Boy Love Association.

ILGA did publicly expel the Man/Boy Love Association in 1994 but the damage was done. The religious right in the U.S. exploited the link and prodded the U.S. government into pushing for ILGA to be dumped.

It was quite a convenient way to silence gay and lesbian voices at the international level. The community has struggled since to regain its place.

In fact, the U.S. supported, in 2002, ILGA’s request to be re-admitted. But that was then (barely a year after Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidency), and this is now (in the second term of religious right-wing Republican George W. Bush). The American administration does not offer an explanation for reversing its position from four years ago.

Understandably, U.S. LGBT groups are outraged. A coalition of 40 groups wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, demanding she explain her government’s move.

Scott Long from the group Human Rights Watch says, “This vote is an aggressive assault by the U.S. government on the right of sexual minorities to be heard.” Long also calls the Bush administration’s alignment with the other countries frequently opposing human rights, “a coalition of the homophobic.”

And what of Canada?

We have a new Conservative government. Notwithstanding their minority status in Parliament, it can significantly change the direction of Canadian foreign policy without parliamentary approval or new legislation.

Canada has been an international leader in defending human rights, a beacon of light in a world where only a handful of countries are willing to denounce the abuse of LGBT people. There is now a great danger that this light of justice will be snuffed out.