FW: [nettime-fr-raw] LGBT proud to vote NO

[Aliette Guibert]

Hi girls and boys, this is a little bit corrected automatic translation of our declaration at http://non.thewarning.info Some parts may still be unclear or in broken English. I'm sorry about this state of things, I'm still waiting on the correct translation I think I will never see now… If parts seem unclear, just ask.

All links refer to the french pdf version of the treaty on the EU website, http://europa.eu.int/constitution/index_en.htm is the portal for the different language versions. Note that the extracts of the treaty in the text is the automatic translation result, it may differ from the text in English.

This text is certainly not a complete charge against this treaty, it is but a digest on LGBT issues. For more general questions, ATTAC or similar organisations should provide a more broad spectrum of our concerns about this bag of @&#$*€%£

If you want to know why the title is LGTB and not LGBT, it's because LGBT is copyrighted in France to one of the french LGBT organisations which are calling for the YES…

Denis =G)

LGTB and proud to vote "NO"

First signatures Olivier Jablonski, president of Warning, Vincent Espagne, civil servant, Sylvie Rouby, Act Up-Lyon, George Sidéris, historian, Yannick Gillant, Psychologue clinician and counselor VIH, President of Jeune Séropositif (young body-positive), Pascale Ourbih, actress, militant for the rights of transgender persons, Mrs H, Marie de Cenival, expert in public health.

" homosexual associations ", by the voices of the ILGA * and of inter-LGBT *, would be for the adoption of the "treaty establishing a constitution for Europe". However, us, lesbians, gays, trans and bisexual, aspiring to an Europe of solidarity, reject this treaty.

How can we accept such a text when we know that the patients of the AIDS count among forgotten of this treaty registering the ultraliberalism dogma and security as the base constitutive of Europe. The right to freedom and safety quoted in part II of the treaty - art 66, is supplied with an exception in the final act, with title II, article 6 "except in the following cases and according to legal ways' (...), if it is about regular detention of a person likely to propagate a contagious disease, of a lunatic, an alcoholic, a drug addict or a vagrant". (Part II art. 66 and final act - art. 6 ) Whereas in France, there is no law criminalising the transmission of the VIH, it is there, not only the confirmation of the discriminatory policies which prevail in several European countries, but also a true invitation with the conviction of body-positive people.

This example shows that with this treaty, the Member States can conceive their regulation with an obsession of safety, including medical, being able to go up to the emprisonement for the most precarious populations.

Social protection and health: a treaty without constraint and formal engagement of the Union

It is in part III, with article 278 (chapter V) which is treated the field of the public health. The European standard posts an ambitious prospect: "a high level of protection of health is ensured in the definition and the implementation of all the policies and actions of the Union" (§1).

But with shared competences, the policies in this field remain under the responsibility of the Member States which cooperate, coordinate each other and "support the co-operation with third countries and the qualified international organizations..." (§3). As the constitution does not impose harmonization of the social policies on the most existing level of protection in the European Union, it is the social dumping, turned towards the alignment of all the countries of the UE on with the lowest offer as regards protection which will carry it.

With this constitution, the Union collectively does not engage the States in the assumption of responsibility of heavy pathologies. On the contrary, it is the recourse to private insurances, medicine at several speeds and the accelerated impoverishment of the patients.

Fight against discriminations: to be satisfied with a wish ?

Worse, this constitution is not constraining with regard to the fight against discriminations of which those founded on the sexual orientation.

The text provides that a "law or a law tallies of the Council of Ministers can establish measurements necessary to fight any discrimination based on the sex, the race or the ethnicity origin, the religion or the convictions, a handicap or the sexual orientation. (art. 124- part III). "can" reinforces the randomness of the recommendation and the Council of Ministers must rule unanimously after approval of the European Parliament. Moreover, the related rights do not come under the exclusive responsibilities of the Union.

For those which did not include/understand yet, appendix 12 of the final act is very clear. It specifies article 81 that the text "does not confer any competence to adopt laws antidiscrimination in these fields of the action of the Member States or of the private individuals (...). makes some, it relates to only discriminations who are the fact of the institutions and bodies of the Union (...), and of the Member States, only when they implement the right of the Union" (appendix 12 of the final act, art. 21).

Cherry on the cake, those which hope to obtain by the constitution a possibility of advancing the access to the marriage for the gays and lesbians will remain on their hunger: the right to marry is strictly framed since the related article "does not prohibit nor does not impose the granting of the statute of marriage on unions between people of same sex" (art. 69 part II and art. II-9 of appendix 12, final Act).

Is this there the projection which justifies engagement for "yes" of some agitators LGBT? Who it should be said in passing also accept that the humans right are a field of competence of the European Union, neither exclusive, nor divided! 

For the writers of the treaty, secularity and fraternity are not values...

How can one accept the refusal of secularity? And the invitation made with the Member States with the "respect of the statute of the philosophical and nondenominational organizations" and with the maintenance D ' "an opened, transparent and regular dialogue with these churches and organisations", whereas the writers do have (knowingly?) omitted the reference to the free provision of its body, right to the divorce, the abortion, the rights of the transgenres? This project of constitution answers the sirens more the reactionaries, those of the religious lobbies and to the groups opposed to the women's rights and of the sexual minorities.

... and the EU does not guarantee equal acces to the rights !

The treaty does not engage the Member States in a collective responsibility but rather returns the citoyennes and citizens to individualism. The right of work, instituted in the French constitution, becomes in the treaty "the right of working" and "freedom to seek an employment"! That with housing with a "help with housing"! This text is inspired by the logic of the assistantship and the individual culpability, and the term of fraternity is not registered there only once! 

This text cannot be accepted by all those and those which, for twenty years, in France and Europe, have engaged in the fight against discriminations. This text cannot be accepted by all those and those which are organized in associations, in networks, and whose model of civic and social engagement is not recognized while the sects and Opus Dei can claim with the dialogue with the political institutions. This constitution does not recognize the social and cultural evolution of Europe marked by the fight for the women's rights and which always continues with the emergence of the homoparentality, of dynamic of car-support, of vigilance citoyenne, of exchange of the savoirs and social co-education. 

To reject this text, which has constitutional only name, which melts Europe on a retrograde model and nondurable, which consolidates the emergence of the moral integrisms, it is to refuse the fate of Europe reactionary and ultralibérale! We are not against a European constitution. We are for Europe of the distribution of the richnesses and equal acces to the rights, for clearly democratic Europe, effective solidarity and of collective responsibility.

This is why, we, LGTB, will vote NO on May 29, 2005 and are been willing to contribute to the development of an alternative and constraining treaty, which guarantees the democracy, freedoms and the basic rights for all and all and opens the way in an interdependent World.

* ILGA: International Lebian & Gay Association; Inter LGBT: collective of associations lesbians, gays, bissexuel(le)s and transgenres. cf. Release of March 26 


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