The United States, by ruling of the Supreme Court,
did not decriminalize homosexuality until 2003.
"American Idol" has been on the television longer than
consensual same-sex sex has been legal in some U.S. states.
This month, perhaps this week, France will introduce to the United Nations General Assembly a statement about human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including torture, arbitrary arrest, killings, political, social and economic discrimination and the criminalization of same-sex love.
Scott Long of Human Rights Watch called the statement, “One of the most comprehensive affirmations of human rights relating to sexual orientation and gender identity that any international body has seen in recent years.”
The statement, building on the UN’s record of promoting LGBT rights, is neither a resolution nor a declaration. It will not be binding. It will not have the force of law in the member states. It will not even be voted upon.
But it hopefully will have symbolic impact and it will send a message to the 86 countries that criminalize same-sex sexual activity. The penalty for such activity is imprisonment in some nations and death in at least seven nations — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Mauritania and parts of Nigeria and Pakistan.
All the European Union members, as well as a number of non-EU countries and Latin American nations, have signed on to the statement to decriminalize homosexuality.
The United States, however, has not signed on to the document.
To anyone’s surprise?
And the Vatican has taken a stand against the statement.
To anyone’s surprise?
In defense of the Vatican’s opposition, Archbishop Celestino Migliore said a statement to decriminalize homosexuality would lead to bias against those who discriminate against gays and lesbians.
“If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations,” Migliore told Reuters. “For example, states which do not recognize same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.”
The French government and some GLBT rights groups responded by calling Migliore’s reasoning wrong or misguided and emphasizing that this statement is intended to discourage nations from sentencing gays to prison or death, an argument that should but doesn’t sway the Vatican. Apparently the Catholic Church’s abhorrence of the death penalty is not as great as its abhorrence of homosexuality.
Because I’m a columnist and not the French secretary of human rights or the spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry, I don’t need to be political. I can confide: I think it would be great if the statement was used to put pressure on nations that promote discrimination, disrespect human dignity and violate human rights.
I can also say that the GLBT community has long maintained that decriminalization has far-reaching impact in regards to employment, marriage, benefits and raising children.
In pushing for decriminalization in the United States, activists and attorneys argued that laws criminalizing consensual sodomy were used to justify denying gays and lesbians jobs and promotions and custody of their children.
My old reporter’s notes quote a director at the American Civil Liberties Union, following the release of the Supreme Court ruling against sodomy laws, as saying, “For years, whenever we have sought equality, we’ve been answered both in courts of law and in the court of public opinion with the claim that we are not entitled to equality because our love makes us criminals. That argument — which has been a serious block to progress — is now a dead letter.”
The Court itself said that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of gays to form intimate relationships and “retain their dignity as free persons.”
Gays, the Court said, have the same right as heterosexuals to “define one’s concept of existence, of meaning, or the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
The statement soon to be read at the United Nations will not have the influence in any nation that the U.S. Supreme ruling had in this country.
But the statement will affirm, as the Court did, gays rights to form intimate relationships, to live with dignity and to seek equality. And, if this is what the Vatican fears, we should say, “Watch out.”
By Lisa Neff
did not decriminalize homosexuality until 2003.
"American Idol" has been on the television longer than
consensual same-sex sex has been legal in some U.S. states.
This month, perhaps this week, France will introduce to the United Nations General Assembly a statement about human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including torture, arbitrary arrest, killings, political, social and economic discrimination and the criminalization of same-sex love.
Scott Long of Human Rights Watch called the statement, “One of the most comprehensive affirmations of human rights relating to sexual orientation and gender identity that any international body has seen in recent years.”
The statement, building on the UN’s record of promoting LGBT rights, is neither a resolution nor a declaration. It will not be binding. It will not have the force of law in the member states. It will not even be voted upon.
But it hopefully will have symbolic impact and it will send a message to the 86 countries that criminalize same-sex sexual activity. The penalty for such activity is imprisonment in some nations and death in at least seven nations — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Mauritania and parts of Nigeria and Pakistan.
All the European Union members, as well as a number of non-EU countries and Latin American nations, have signed on to the statement to decriminalize homosexuality.
The United States, however, has not signed on to the document.
To anyone’s surprise?
And the Vatican has taken a stand against the statement.
To anyone’s surprise?
In defense of the Vatican’s opposition, Archbishop Celestino Migliore said a statement to decriminalize homosexuality would lead to bias against those who discriminate against gays and lesbians.
“If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations,” Migliore told Reuters. “For example, states which do not recognize same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.”
The French government and some GLBT rights groups responded by calling Migliore’s reasoning wrong or misguided and emphasizing that this statement is intended to discourage nations from sentencing gays to prison or death, an argument that should but doesn’t sway the Vatican. Apparently the Catholic Church’s abhorrence of the death penalty is not as great as its abhorrence of homosexuality.
Because I’m a columnist and not the French secretary of human rights or the spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry, I don’t need to be political. I can confide: I think it would be great if the statement was used to put pressure on nations that promote discrimination, disrespect human dignity and violate human rights.
I can also say that the GLBT community has long maintained that decriminalization has far-reaching impact in regards to employment, marriage, benefits and raising children.
In pushing for decriminalization in the United States, activists and attorneys argued that laws criminalizing consensual sodomy were used to justify denying gays and lesbians jobs and promotions and custody of their children.
My old reporter’s notes quote a director at the American Civil Liberties Union, following the release of the Supreme Court ruling against sodomy laws, as saying, “For years, whenever we have sought equality, we’ve been answered both in courts of law and in the court of public opinion with the claim that we are not entitled to equality because our love makes us criminals. That argument — which has been a serious block to progress — is now a dead letter.”
The Court itself said that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of gays to form intimate relationships and “retain their dignity as free persons.”
Gays, the Court said, have the same right as heterosexuals to “define one’s concept of existence, of meaning, or the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
The statement soon to be read at the United Nations will not have the influence in any nation that the U.S. Supreme ruling had in this country.
But the statement will affirm, as the Court did, gays rights to form intimate relationships, to live with dignity and to seek equality. And, if this is what the Vatican fears, we should say, “Watch out.”
By Lisa Neff
No comments:
Post a Comment