What is the true motivation for the Trump Administration's vote against the UN resolution condemning the use of the death penalty against people for being LGBT?

The Trump Administration recently voted against a United Nations Human Rights Commission resolution (United Nations Human Rights Commission resolution) condemning the use of capital punishment against people because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.  Reported here.

My initial reaction was that not only does President Trump endorse a candidate for Senate, Roy Moore, who would put my sons and sons-in-law in jail, but he goes along with foreign governments who would execute them and make orphans of my grandchildren. What could the Trump Administration say in defense of its United Nations vote?  And what could  Republican officeholders with gay children like Senator Robert Portman (R-Ohio) have to say? Would they say that these are matters upon which reasonable people of good will can differ?

Well, we have the answer to the first of my questions. And I do not find it satisfactory.

The Administration asserts that the language the UN Human Rights Commission of September 2017 principally involved a total condemnation of capital punishment (something still legal in most states and under federal law) and that that is why the Administration voted NO.  See here.  A State Department spokesperson made the following statement:

“As our representative to the Human Rights Council said last Friday, the United States is disappointed to have voted against that resolution. We voted against that resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances, and it called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether. We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully, as the United States does. The United States unequivocally condemns the application of the death penalty for conduct such as homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery, and apostasy. We do not consider such conduct appropriate for criminalization.”

The problem with this rationale is that while the September 2017 resolution references an earlier statement calling on countries to eliminate the death penalty (the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), the instant resolution only calls upon “States that have not yet acceded to or ratified the [Second Optional Protocol] “aiming at the abolition of the death penalty to consider doing so” (Item 2 at p. 3, emphasis supplied) and “Calls upon States that have not yet abolished the death penalty to ensure that it is not applied on the basis of discriminatory laws or as a result of discriminatory or arbitrary application of the law”(Item 3 at p. 3).  It then goes on to “urge[] States that have not yet abolished the death penalty to ensure that it is not imposed as a sanction for specific forms of conduct such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations) (Item 6 at p. 3, emphasis supplied).” 

I myself am not a proponent of total abolition of the death penalty. After the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trials, I personally cannot be so categorical, even though I recognize the horrible inconsistencies, unfairness, and invidious discrimination in its implementation. This is a tough question over which, I believe, reasonable people may differ.  But the September 2017 resolution, while it “urges” States like the United States to “consider” abolition, it does not itself require abolition.  Rather, it condemns discriminatory use -- like killing LGBT people for simply living their lives.  

So I believe that the Trump Administration’s vote against the September 2017 resolution is essentially a wink and a nod toward the most heinous of anti-LGBTQ forces, yet another attempt to have it both ways on issues where Trump's Roy Moore/Steve Bannon base and the rest of the American citizenry fundamentally differ.