The LGBT juggernaut threatens the very existence of our entire human rights framework
In the realm of international human rights law, major conflicts
are developing today between freedom of conscience and lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender (LGBT) policies. In these conflicts, much more is at stake than
the rights of religious people. Everyone who cares about human rights for
all—LGBT or not—should be concerned about the resolution of these conflicts,
for the continued viability of the entire human rights framework hinges on
their outcome.
Conscience occupies a place of paramount importance in
international human rights law for at least two reasons. First, our endowment
with conscience and reason is the foundation of the human rights system.
Second, conscience has also been the engine of human rights activism—from the
abolition of slavery to the condemnation of genocide. Because the architects of
the modern international human rights system had a high view of conscience,
both as evidence of human dignity and as a faculty for discerning moral truth,
they identified it as a “core human right.”
Therefore, they created the strongest level of legal protection
for it.
As conflicts between freedom of conscience and other interests
arose in the past, legal interpreters consistently gave deference to freedom of
conscience. Over the past decade, however, conflicts between freedom of conscience
and LGBT policies (particularly same-sex marriage and sexual-orientation
nondiscrimination mandates) have grown rapidly and now threaten to undermine
the status of freedom of conscience.
Conscience in Modern Human
Rights Law
The post-World War II generation vowed “never again” after the
Holocaust and created a system of international law to protect the human rights
of every person. In 1947, the United Nations commissioned individuals
from different
nations, cultures, and religions to draft the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR). They could not agree on divinity, but all saw the
need for a transcendent basis for human rights, which they outlined in the
first Article:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity
and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience . . .
The UDHR itself didn’t create rights; it merely recognized that
they arise from human dignity, reason, and conscience.
The protection of freedom of conscience is strongly expressed in
UDHR Article 18:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and
observance.
The UN General Assembly further strengthened protection of these
freedoms in 1966, when it adopted the legally binding International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In that treaty, the
right to conscience is one of only seven rights that are
“non-derogable”—meaning governments must always respect them, even during
public emergencies.
Throughout its history of interpreting the ICCPR, the UN Human
Rights Committee (the “Committee”), has described freedom of conscience as “far-reaching and profound.” In
conflicts between freedom of conscience and interests of the State, the
Committee has sought to give the maximum amount of space to individuals to follow their
consciences. Why, then, do we have cause for concern?
LGBT Policies in
International Law
Recently LGBT policies have proliferated at an incredibly rapid
pace. LGBT activists now seek to advance new policies at
the United Nations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Basing new “human rights” on these grounds will open the door to an infinite
variety of demands and problems. Where conflicts have arisen, LGBT activists
have sought to subordinate freedom of conscience to LGBT policies—a trend that
endangers the universal human rights system itself.
All human beings possess rights because of our unique human
nature as evidenced by reason and conscience. LGBT persons have the same human
rights as others, because of their human dignity, evidenced by their endowed
reason and conscience—not by virtue of their sexual attraction or gender
preferences.
Some may claim, as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did, that “gay
rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.” This
statement misleads by (1) implying that same-sex-attracted and transgendered
persons do not currently enjoy human rights protections, and (2) suggesting
that all LGBT claims merit recognition as new human rights. Secretary Clinton has pointed to tragic
attacks on same-sex attracted and transgendered persons. Yet no
one can credibly assert that LGBT persons do not have human rights. The UDHR
and ICCPR protect every individual from arbitrary arrest, torture, and
extrajudicial killing by the State, because all humans have human dignity, regardless of
their sexual attraction or gender preference. If any person is denied these
rights (whether they identify as same-sex attracted or not), then UN human
rights bodies should investigate and strengthen enforcement of their rights.
Secretary Clinton names a problem that already has a solution.
The LGBT movement’s attempts to focus exclusively on violence
against persons who identify as part of that community, however, injects bias
into and undermines the impartial nature of the human rights system. Violence
against heterosexuals is equally unjust.
Such claims also misleadingly imply that the claims of LGBT
activists are co-extensive with existing human rights. This is not true,
however, as LGBT activists claim many new human rights on the grounds of sexual
attraction and gender preference.
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The LGBT roadmap for effecting change in international human
rights law is the Yogyakarta Principles (YP). Described by Human Rights Watch as
“groundbreaking,” LGBT activists are using the YP to press for “sexual
orientation” to be read into all human rights treaties and documents.
The YP cites “sexual orientation and gender identity” as “integral to
every person’s dignity and humanity.” Based on this new understanding of human
dignity, the YP says “States may incur additional
obligations as human rights law continues to evolve.”
LGBT activists do not base human dignity on reason and
conscience, but rather on their sexuality. Yet once rights and “additional
obligations” can be created based on sexual and gender preferences, they can
become endless—and ultimately meaningless.
LGBT Policies and the Right
to Marriage
Of the many policies that LGBT activists assert, the one that
has come into sharpest conflict with freedom of conscience is the asserted
right to same-sex marriage. UDHR Article 16 states:
Men and women of full age, without any limitation due
to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a
family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and
at its dissolution. . . . The family is the natural and fundamental group unit
of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
In 1948, the drafters of the UDHR were certainly describing the
concept of marriage as between one woman and one man. The drafters took care to
note that the institution of marriage and “family” (referring to a mother and a
father) was a “natural and fundamental” group unit that both State and society
should protect. Yet now, around the world and at the United Nations, LGBT activists seek to
redefine Article 16 to include marriages between two men and two women.
In 2013, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld decisions by the British government to force a civil
servant to provide marriage certificates and a counselor to provide
psycho-sexual counseling to same-sex couples. Both had co-workers who were
willing to provide these services. Yet the ECHR found that their employers
rightfully terminated them because they were obligated to uphold “equality.” In
doing so, the ECHR rejected the deference historically provided to conscience
in the UN framework, and elevated the assertion of “equality” above freedom.
No true, universal human right grounded in human dignity would
ever lead to the violation of other human rights. However, the LGBT movement’s
efforts to limit debate of its claimed “rights” do just that—by limiting
freedom of conscience. YP Principle 21(b) states that governments must “[e]nsure that the expression,
practice and promotion of different
opinions, convictions and beliefs with regard to issues of
sexual orientation or gender identity” not be “undertaken in a manner
incompatible with human rights.” The vague phrase “incompatible with human
rights” justifies censoring those who hold “different opinions, convictions and
beliefs” and violating their freedom of conscience.
How LGBT Policies Could
Alter the Balance between the State and the Individual
In 2011, a State Department official responded to a UN declaration on LGBT
policies with the following:
That is the way these international norms are built .
. . It’s not from scratch. It builds up over time. So this is really a critical
beginning of a universal recognition of a new set of rights that forms part of
the international system.
This statement is based on the view that the State or the United
Nations is the source of our human rights. Charles Malik, one of the drafters
of the UDHR, warned after World War II that when the State has the ultimate
power to create rights, it also has the power to revoke them. Only when human
rights are grounded in transcendent, fixed authority can they stand the test of
time and shifts in power. If LGBT policies are elevated above freedom of
conscience, it will be to the detriment of all human rights. Our consciences
are the basis of our dignity upon which we can claim to have universal and
inalienable rights that are not derived from the State.
We should not be too quick to alter the existing structure that
so many built so carefully over such a long span of time. Moral convictions in
the human conscience led to the recognition of the inalienable and inherent
nature of human rights for all. Demoting freedom of conscience to elevate LGBT
policies will cause irreversible damage to the entire human rights system. If
freedom of conscience is subjugated to LGBT policies, how will the human rights
system be sustained?
Travis Weber is the Director of the Center for Religious Liberty
at the Family Research Council. He is a graduate of the US Naval Academy,
Regent University School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center, where he
studied international law and human rights. L. Lin is a graduate of Harvard Law
School who has defended freedom of thought, conscience, and religion for people
who hold a variety of beliefs. This essay is based on the larger article which
appears in the online supplement of the Regent Journal of
Global Justice and Public Policy, and which will be published in the Spring
2016 edition of that journal. Reprinted with permission from The
Witherspoon Institute.
