The United Nations is releasing a report in June regarding the “perceived contradictions” between religious freedom and sexual orientation and gender identity, or SOGI, laws and is looking to push governments to “fully comply with their obligations under international human rights law to protect and empower LGBT+ persons,” according to a U.N. announcement.
The U.N. closed a call for LGBT+ and religious freedom organizations to submit input to the report earlier this month and is scheduled to introduce its findings at the 53rd Human Rights Council meeting in June, according to the announcement. The announcement explains that while there are “perceived contradictions” between the LGBT+ community and religious freedom, the report aims to find ways to “protect LGBT+ persons’ access to faith and spirituality” while also indicating that religious beliefs that would contradict this are not “justified” under the protection of human rights.
“Religious and spiritual narratives have also historically been used to promote, enable, and condone institutional and personal violence and discrimination against individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity (real or presumed); repress sexual and gender diversity; and promote cis-gendered and heteronormative norms of sexual orientation and gender identity,” the announcement read. “These practices cannot be justified under the rubric of Freedom of Religious Beliefs, or indeed any other human right, to circumvent and defeat the rights of marginalized populations.”
Any organization that wished to comment for the inquiry was tasked with keeping their comments to a minimum of 2,500 words and providing answers to 11 questions on religious freedom and the rights of the LGBT+ community, according to the announcement. Respondents were asked whether or not any religious beliefs and LGBT+ rights were “mutually exclusive,” to point out policies that protect discriminatory religious practices and about the extent to which religious individuals have the right to a conscientious objection.
The U.N. didn’t disclose who commented ahead of the report’s release, but two organizations publicly published their comments for the inquiry, focusing on their concerns about the impact on the religious community. The Religious Freedom Institute and the Heritage Foundation’s comments worried that the special inquiry would “undermine” and result in the “politicization” of religious freedom as a human right.
We reached out to the Seventh-day Adventist PARL department, to see if they submitted concerns to the UN. No response yet.
Observations
The United Nations increasingly sees LGBTQ rights (agenda) and religious convictions as being in conflict. Their default position is the elevation of human rights (ie. LGBTQ) over biblical morality.
Reports like the one from the U.N. are based on a “narrative” that “religion is an oppressor and that religious freedom can be weaponized to harm others.”
This narrative is not only harmful because it could make people doubt the importance of religion in their own lives and their communities, but it’s also harmful because it will undermine important social protection.
Religion and religious freedom is a stabilizing presence, and for the cases where religion is being misused to oppress (ie Islam etc), the answer isn’t to shut down religion entirely.
The United Nations position is that religious and spiritual narratives have historically been used to promote discrimination against individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity (real or presumed); repress sexual and gender diversity; and promote cisgendered and heteronormative norms of sexual orientation and gender identity. This has resulted in a variety of discriminatory normative constructions reinforced over time. In other words, the Bible premise of male and female uniting in marriage for life and producing children in that union is discriminatory towards sexual confusion and deviancy. Yes it is. Delightfully so.
The United Nations is three parts incompetent and one part corrupt, yet the GC PARL Department still trusts them.
Our PARL department director’s affinity for the United Nations could result in him being conflicted by such pro-LGBTQ initiatives from the UN. He is also deeply embedded in ecumenical initiatives — in our opinion, dangerously so.. He may have to choose whether to follow the Bible or the United Nations. It can’t be both.
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