ReligionDispatches.org

The Vatican said it condemned

all forms of violence against homosexuals, but did not support a recently-proposed

U.N. Declaration on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,

recognizing "sexual orientation" and "gender identity"

as new categories that need human rights

protections. The Vatican called the U.N. proposal as ill-defined and overly broad.

The Declaration

on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, is a French-initiated statement

presented to the United National General Assembly on December 18, 2008. The declaration condemns violence,

harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice

based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also condemns killings

and executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and deprivation of economic,

social, and cultural rights on those grounds. It is calling for an end

to the laws criminalizing gay sex between consenting adults in private.

It wants all States to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity

may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular

executions, arrests or detention. Sources

say that "homosexuality"

and gay sex between consenting adults in private is punishable by law

in 77 countries and gay people can be executed in seven Islamic countries:

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Mauritania and parts of Nigeria and

Pakistan. On the other hand it is legal in 47 countries, while 57 other

countries passed legislation to protect same-sex orientation. The declaration

also urges States to ensure that human rights violations based on sexual

orientation or gender identity are investigated and perpetrators held

accountable and brought to justice and to ensure adequate protection

of human rights defenders, and remove obstacles to them carrying out

their work on issues of human rights and sexual orientation and gender

identity. The declaration has been recognized as an important step on

the way to fulfill human rights' objectives, finally breaking the

taboo against speaking about LGBT rights in the United Nations.

Sixty-six of the United Nations' 192

member countries signed the declaration, including every member of the

European Union and every major Western nation except the United States.

Among the first to voice opposition

for the declaration was Vatican. "Despite the declaration's rightful

condemnation of and protection from all forms of violence against homosexual

persons, the document, when considered in its entirety, goes beyond

this goal and instead gives rise to uncertainty in the law and challenges

existing human rights norms," a Vatican

statement said.

In early December, 2008, the apostolic nuncio leading the Holy See's

permanent observer mission to the United Nations, Celestino Migliore,

claimed: "If adopted, it would create new and implacable discriminations.

A declaration might be used to put pressure on or discriminate against

countries that do not recognize same sex marriage." In a statement Archbishop

Migliore noted: "In particular, the categories 'sexual orientation'

and 'gender identity,' used in the text, find no recognition or clear

and agreed definition in international law. If they had to be taken

into consideration in the proclaiming and implementing of fundamental

rights, these would create serious uncertainty in the law as well as

undermine the ability of States to enter into and enforce new and existing

human rights conventions and standards." The statement was widely criticized, for example by France, as well as

by Amnesty International and gay rights groups and Italian press.

Fifty-seven of U.N. member states supported an opposing statement. The statement rejected the idea that

sexual orientation is a matter of genetic coding and claimed that the

two notions of sexual orientation and gender identity should not be

linked to existing human rights instruments, adding that the statement

"fell into matters that were in the domestic jurisdiction of states"

and could possibly "legitimize many deplorable acts, such as pedophilia."

However, Archbishop Migliore

also made clear the Vatican's opposition to legal discrimination against

homosexuals, which is clearly stated in the Catechism

of the Catholic Church. "The Holy See appreciates the attempts made in the Declaration on human

rights, sexual orientation and gender identity. The Holy See continues

to advocate that every sign of unjust discrimination towards homosexual

persons should be avoided and urges States to do away with criminal

penalties against them," said Archbishop while speaking to a session

of the UN General Assembly.

Following the Vatican's controversial

opposition to a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination

against homosexuals, Archbishop Celestino Migliore confirmed that the Holy See

also refused to sign

a U.N.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in May 2008 because it did not condemn

abortion or assert the rights of fetuses with birth defects. The Vatican

made its position clear on the United Nations International Day of Disabled

People. Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman, said the Holy

See's position was "already widely known." Archbishop Migliore said

the Vatican supported the rights of the disabled, but could not accept

a clause in the UN declaration affirming a right to "sexual health

and reproduction" because "in some countries such rights include

the right to abortion."  The Holy See's position was criticized

by the Italian Federation for the Handicapped.