ITALIAN gay rights groups and newspapers have turned their fury on the Vatican following its decision to oppose a proposed UN resolution calling on governments worldwide to de-criminalise homosexuality.
According to this report, the row erupted yesterday after the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations told a French Catholic news agency that the Holy See was against the resolution, which France is due to propose later this month on behalf of the 27-member European Union.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, representative of a 'grotesque' and 'idiotic' Vatican
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, 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 discrimination. For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.
A strongly worded editorial in Italy’s mainstream La Stampa newspaper said the Vatican’s reasoning was “grotesque.”
Pointing out that homosexuality was still punishable by death in some Islamic countries, the editorial said what the Vatican really feared was a:
Chain reaction in favour of legally recognised homosexual unions in countries, like Italy, where there is currently no legislation.
Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy’s leading gay rights group, said the Vatican’s reasoning smacked of “total idiocy and madness.”
The French resolution, which is supported by all 27 members of the European Union, has nothing to do with gay marriage. It is about stopping jail and the death penalty for homosexuals.
The resolution is to be presented by Rama Yade, France’s state secretary for human rights. Yesterday the French government defended the resolution.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said that the resolution:
… Is an initiative that is based on existing texts. The idea is not to create new rights. The idea is … to make decriminalisation possible.
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.
An editorial in Rome’s left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper said the Vatican’s position “leaves one dumbstruck.” Margherita Boniver, a leading member of the Italy’s leftist Democratic Party, called it “alarmingly anachronistic.”
Grillini said he feared what he called another “Holy Alliance” between the Vatican and Islamic states at the United Nations to oppose the proposed resolution.
At a major UN conference on the family in Cairo in 1994, the Vatican teamed up with Islamic and Latin American countries to defeat an abortion rights proposal.
The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. In October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity and a wound.”
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
At their recent meeting in Rome, Catholic and Muslim representatives agreed to work together more closely in the future, including setting up a joint committee to present a “common position” on topical questions. For all the Pope’s occasionally expressed doubts about Islam, the two sides have a lot in common. We should be afraid.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
The major religions getting together on topics such as this is indeed very frightening, given the shear number of idiotic and bigoted followers they have.
However, why is it that the catholic church, which appears to have a disproportionate number of priests who are gay, is so obsessed with what gay men do? Of course this is a cult that also has a very high number of child abusers.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Angela K. Your points make islam and the catholic church even more alike although the gay imams make damned sure that their straight counterparts are looking in the other direction.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I am a supporter of the moves to remove the disqualification of Roman Catholics in the higher ends of the British Constitution in principle. But the outlook of the church on matters like this, on the use of condoms in Africa to mitigate the spread of AIDS and the authoritarian pronouncements of cardinals and archbishops instructing catholic MPs to follow church teachings when the majority of their constituents is not catholic alters my principle. The church’s pretensions and its dalliance with islam do not warrant change so as far as I am concerned we should not give this gang of bigots what they seek.