Vatican attacked for opposing gay decriminalization

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081202/wl_nm/us_vatican_homosexuals_2

Gay rights groups and newspaper editorials on Tuesday condemned the Vatican for its decision to oppose a proposed U.N. resolution calling on governments worldwide to de-criminalize homosexuality.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination” and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage.

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

Human rights groups say homosexuality is still punishable by law in more than 85 countries and by death in a number of them, including Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi said “no one wants the death penalty or jail or fines for homosexuals” but defended Migliore’s comments, adding that the Vatican was in the majority on the issue.

“It’s not for nothing that fewer than 50 member states of the United Nations have adhered to the proposal in question while more than 150 have not adhered. The Holy See is not alone,” Lombardi said.

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. But in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity and a wound.”