This section provides a detailed timeline of the events leading up to NAMBLA’s expulsion from the ILGA as well as the loss of ILGA’s UN consultative status in 1994.   

July 30, 1993: The United States and twenty-one other member countries of the United Nations (U.N.) Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) vote to grant consultative status to the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) as a non-governmental organization. According to Advocate journalist Duncan Osborn, “more than 900 organization have non government organization status at the U.N., and the type of status is the lowest form awarded by the international agency.”[1] The ILGA, however, was the first group representing gays and lesbian issues to receive status.

September 16, 1993: Lambda Report, a right-wing newsletter dedicated to monitoring gay rights issues, publishes its first issue, which includes an article entitled “U.N. Grants Voice to Gay Group with Pedophile Ties.”[2] The article focuses heavily on the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and its success in promoting “pro pedophile” positions within the ILGA over the prior ten years. The report is circulated to U.S. congressional representatives and to major media outlets.

October 13, 1993: Larry King Live hosts a debate about the ILGA’s relationship to the U.N. ECOSOC, in light of the “fact” that one of its member organizations, NAMBLA, is a pedophile group that advocates for sex between adults and children. Commentators included Julie Dorf, Action Secretariat of ILGA and Executive Director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC); Bill Andriette, spokesperson of NAMBLA; and Peter LaBarbera of Lambda Report.

October 15, 1993: A letter to ILGA Information Secretariat, Micha Ramaker, from the United States Mission to the United Nations states that “had we known at the time of the vote that NAMBLA was a member of ILGA, the U.S. would not have been able to support the Committee’s recommendation to grant official status to ILGA. The U.S. Mission … [is] reconsidering ILGA’s status with the ECOSOC in light of this new information.” The letter further states that “the goals of NAMBLA, as brandished in its name, have no place in the United Nations Forum.”[3]

October 25, 1993: Following the Larry King Live segment, openly gay U.S. Representative Barney Frank (MA), in a letter to Julie Dorf warns that if “NAMBLA remains part of ILGA, there is no way in the world anyone could stop a resolution from going through both Houses of Congress insisting that the President repudiate our support for ILGA.” Barney also warned that “if they attack ILGA without NAMBLA, we will be able to defeat their attack, and if they attack ILGA with NAMBLA, they will win.”[4]

November 5, 1993: The Washington Blade publishes an article reporting that prominent gay leaders and organizations are calling for the ILGA to expel NAMBLA. Formal statements are released by the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force (NLGTF); Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG); and the Log Cabin Club. Other organizations, such as the National Black Gay and Lesbian Forum, were supportive of NAMBLA’s removal but suspicious of the government’s motivation, which “have very little to do with NAMBLA, but more to do with ignorance and homophobia.”[5]

November 7, 1993: The ILGA Secretariat Committee (ILGA SC) releases a “Statement on Protection of Children,” which includes a resolution that was adopted at the 1990 ILGA World Conference in Stockholm. The ILGA SC reports that after meeting with NAMBLA representatives on November 5, during the annual ILGA SC meeting in New York City it decided to refund NAMBLA’s 1993 dues and request that the group resign its membership in ILGA. If NAMBLA does not resign, the ILGA SC “proposes that NAMBLA be expelled at the next Annual ILGA World Conference” in June 1994.[6] The statement is accompanied by an “Explanatory Note on Secretariats Position Regarding NAMBLA and other Pedophile Groups Membership in ILGA”[7]

November 15, 1993: NAMBLA releases a press statement entitled “NAMBLA Affirms Membership in ILGA: ILGA’s members continue longstanding support of man/boy love in face of attack of US government and right wing.” The statement documents the ways in which “the ILGA secretariats’ statement contradicts the positions ILGA has adopted over the course of a decade, and distorts NAMBA’s platform.”[8]

January 25, 1994: Republican U.S. Senator Jesse Helms proposes Amendment 1246, which would cut $118,875,000 of federal funding earmarked to support international organizations “unless the President of the Senate that no United Nations Agency or United Nations-Affiliated agency grants any official status, accreditation, or recognition to any organization which promotes, condones, or seeks the legalization of pedophilia, or which includes as a subsidiary or member any such organization.”[9] 

February 1, 1994: Helms clarifies, in a Senate session on Amendment 1246, that expelling NAMBLA from the ILGA will not “take care of this problem.” He continues, “It has been more than amply documented that the ILGA itself is an organization that promotes, condones, or seeks the legalization of pedophilia.” He concludes his remarks by stating that “unless ILGA has been stripped of its consultative status by the time the amendment becomes law, the President will have no choice but to withhold the funds specified.”[10]

March 5, 1994: The International Lesbian and Gay Youth Organization America (ILGYO: America) releases a formal position supporting the expulsion of NAMBLA from ILGA. The statement reads that “considering the fact that IGLYO condemns every kind of sexual abuse…, IGLYO feels that preadolescents lack the mental integrity to consent to relationships and sexual contact.”[11]

June 26, 1994: NAMBLA is banned from marching in Stonewall 25, an international pride parade which celebrates the twenty fifth anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City. Stonewall 25 was scheduled to take place on the same weekend as the ILGA’s 17th World Conference in New York City. NAMBLA and its supporters march alongside ACT UP and Radical Faeries in the alternative Spirit of Stonewall (SOS) parade.[12] SOS circulates a petition and statement entitled “NAMBLA Marches with us at Stonewall 25!” which is signed by Harry Hay, Pat Califia, Gayle Rubin, Chris Bearchell, Scott O’Hara, Charley Shively, David Thorstad, Tom Reeves, and Jim Becker.[13] Speaking on behalf of SOS and as the co-founder of NAMBLA, Tom Reeves says, “We criticize the Stonewall committee and gay and lesbian leadership for falling away from the original purpose of sexual liberation as experienced in the Stonewall riots.”[14]

June 30, 1994: The ILGA General Assembly successfully passes a motion to expel NAMBLA as an ILGA member organization at the 17th World Conference in New York City. Two hundred and fourteen delegates vote in favor of the motion, thirty vote against it, and ten abstain.[15]

September 16, 1994: The U.N. suspends ILGA’s consultative status within ECOSOC. While ILGA had taken steps to expel NAMBLA and two other pro-pedophile groups, “when asked by the United States to vouch that none of its members condoned such behavior, the ILGA said it could not.”[16] Victor Marreor, the US representative to ECOSOC, invites ILGA to apply for reinstatement when it can “convincingly assure members of [ECOSOC] that neither its members or subsidiaries, nor ILGA itself, promotes condones, or seeks the legalization of pedophilia.”[17]

September 19, 1994: In a press release, NAMBLA comments on ILGA’s expulsion from the U.N.: “NAMBLA had been a member of ILGA for more than ten years and joined after the 1983 ILGA conference passed a recommendation welcoming pedophile groups. Like NAMBLA, ILGA has taken positions over the years supporting the right of young people to self-determination, the possibility of consenting relationships between adults and youths, and stating opposition to coercion and abuse. These positions were never revoked, and even after the expulsion of the three groups, ILGA contained organizations that support man/boy love or contained groups focusing on that issue.”[18]

October 6, 1994: Democratic U.S. Representative Barney Frank, who criticizes ILGA for not banning NAMBLA much earlier, also notes that even though the “ILGA worked very hard to try to comply with the anti-pedophile police [of the Helms amendment], the Clinton Administration made no serious effort to work with them in a constructive way.” Barney laments that in helping to suspend the only organization representing gays and lesbians at the U.N., “the administration has made a mockery of its own desire to support the legitimate rights to lesbians and gay men.”[19]

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[1] Duncan Osborne, “The Trouble with NAMBLA: How the Controversy Developed,” The Advocate, Dec. 14, 1993, 40.

[2] “U.N. Grants Voice to Gay Group with Pedophile Ties,” Lambda Report, Sept. 1993, Box 49, Folder 15: Material Related to ILGA, DTP.

[3] Letter to Micha Ramaker, ILGA Information Secretariat from the United States Mission to the United Nations, Oct. 15, 1993, Box 1, Folder 4, HKP.

[4] Letter to Julie Dorf from Rep. Barney Frank, Oct. 25, 1993, Box 49, Folder 15: Material Related to ILGA, DTP.

[5]Aras van Hertum, “U.S. Gay Leaders Urging ILGA to Oust NAMBLA,” Washington Blade, Nov. 5, 1993, 19.

[6] Statement on Protection of Children, ILGA Secretariat’s Committee, New York, Nov. 7, 1993, Box 50, Folder 18: ILGA and NAMBLA’s Ejection, DTP.

[7] Explanatory Note on Secretariat’s Position Regarding NAMBLA and other Pedophile Groups Membership in ILGA, Nov. 15, 1993, Box 49, Folder 15: Material Related to ILGA, DTP.

[8] Press Release, “NAMBLA Affirms Membership in ILGA,” Nov. 15, 1993, Box 49, Folder 15: Material Related to ILGA, DTP.

[9] Senator Helms, speaking on Amendment No. 1248, on Jan. 25, 1994, 103rd Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 140, S 26.

[10] Senator Helms, speaking on Amendment No. 1248, on Feb. 1, 1994, 103rd Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 140, S 632.

[11] Press Release, ILGYO: America. Mar. 5, 1994, International Gay Information Center Ephemera Files – Organizations, Box 10, Folder 1: International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization, NYPL.

[12] Colin Richardson, “Famous Names Join NAMBLA,” Gay Times, July 1994, 190. For Camilla Paglia’s perspective on NAMBLA, pedophilia, and age-of-consent laws, see Camilla Paglia, “Kids for Sale,” The Advocate Oct. 31, 1995.

[13] NAMBLA Marches with Us at Stonewall 25! Spirit of Stonewall Petition, June 26, 1994, Box 38, Folder 23: Miscellaneous Articles 1990s, DTP.

[14] John Gallagher, “The Stonewall Shuffle,” The Advocate, June 28, 1994, 18.

[15] “ILGA Kicks out Paedophiles: Massive Vote in Favour of Expelling Man-Boy Love Association,” The Pink Paper, July 8, 1994, 35, Box 50, Folder 18: ILGA and NAMBLA’s Ejection, DTP.

[16] “U.N. Suspends Group in Dispute over Pedophilia,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1994.

[17] Lou Chibbari Jr., “U.N. Boots Gay Group,” Focus Point, Oct 6, 1994, 6.

[18] Press Release, “NAMBLA comments on ILGA’s expulsion from the UN,” Sept. 19, 1994, 30, Box 50, Folder 18: ILGA and NAMBLA’s Ejection, DTP.

[19] Chibbari, “U.N. Boots Gay Group.”