Obama Administration to Sign UN Declaration to 'Decriminalize Homosexuality'

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, told a French news agency that the declaration is "sad and outrageous" and was a form of "modern savagery that will dismantle our society from the inside out."

WASHINGTON (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Obama Administration has confirmed that it will endorse a United Nations declaration that will call for the global "decriminalization of homosexuality."

The State Department today endorsed the U.N. statement, saying that it did so out of concern over for "violence and human rights abuses against gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual individuals" and "the criminalization of sexual orientation in many countries."

The declaration in question, which former president George W. Bush refused to sign, has been heavily criticised by pro-family groups as a significant step towards the worldwide outlawing of religious opposition to the homosexualist political agenda.

State department officials said Tuesday that they had notified the declaration's sponsors that the administration wants to be added as a supporter. The declaration is being sponsored by France and the Netherlands at the request of homosexualist activist Louis-Georges Tin. It has been signed by all 27 European Union members of the UN's General Assembly, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries, making a total of 66 of the UN's 192 member states. 70 UN member states outlaw homosexual activity and more than 50 nations opposed the declaration. The US was the only western country that had refused to sign.

An official told the Associated Press that the decision to endorse was related to a ruling from the United States Supreme Court that accepted the right to be free from criminalization on the basis of sexual orientation "as an integral part of human freedom."

The Obama administration has claimed that the nonbinding declaration merely targets the seven Islamic countries that levy the death penalty for homosexual activity. But Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), said the announcement is further evidence that the Obama administration is in full support of the homosexualist agenda.

Calling the declaration a "press release" initiated by the French government, Ruse said, "What the press release really does is encourage the acceptance of gender identity and sexual orientation as a category of non-discrimination in human rights treaties so that these categories would stand alongside race, religion, and other widely accepted categories of non-discrimination."

Ruse referred to the "very healthy homosexual lobby" in the State Department and in various parts of the U.S. government.

The US Policy Director on Identity-based Discrimination, for Amnesty International, the organisation that recently committed itself to defending abortion and homosexual "marriage" on human rights grounds, praised the decision, calling it a "welcome change" from the Bush administration policy.

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In December, homosexualist activists around the world attacked the Vatican for opposing the declaration. In the Netherlands, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Maxime Verhagen, demanded that the papal nuncio, Monsignor François Bacqué, respond to accusations that the Church opposes "gay rights."

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, told a French news agency that the declaration is "sad and outrageous" and was a form of "modern savagery that will dismantle our society from the inside out."

"If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations," Migliore said. "For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure."

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