GAY TRUTH

Margaret Somerville is Professor of Bioethics in the School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia . I wish that I could support same-sex marriage and I have "moral regret" that I can't. When we feel ethically bound to take a position that we know will cause hurt to others, we should - and I do - regret the hurt that causes. If same-sex marriage involved only adults it would be much easier to agree with legalizing it. One hopes its advocates are correct that it would send a powerful message from society as a whole that discrimination against homosexual people and ill-treatment of LGBTIQ persons or a failure to respect them is abhorrent. But marriage doesn't involve just adults; it also involves - and, arguably, primarily - children. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines marriage as a compound right: men and women "have the right to marry and to found a family." The "right to found a family" makes marriage the soci...

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 i...

Ireland has written a social suicide note and we grieve for her. But we will not follow her. More than half the Irish have voted for homosexual marriage , seduced by celebrities to violate something they once held sacred: the life between mother, father and child. From today, the Irish Constitution assumes a mother does not matter to a baby, and a father is irrelevant to his son. That is madness. A constitutional right to same-sex marriage means a constitutional right to same-sex adoption and surrogacy, and that means motherless and fatherless families are now enshrined as an ideal in the Irish Constitution. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the vote was “Yes to love” -- but there are children who will never know the love of their mother because of Friday’s constitutional amendment. He said it was “Yes to inclusion” -- but it deliberately excludes children of same-sex couples from “the natural and fundamental group unit of society”, which is how the Universal Declaration o...

United Nations exhibit by OWI at Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. Close-up of photographic display and seals of the nations (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress ) The United Nations put a damper on “ gay pride ” festivities last Thursday when it re-affirmed that the natural family is the fundamental unit of society. The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on “Protection of the Family” with a traditional definition of the family last Thursday, even as revelers readied themselves to celebrate gay pride weekend. It recognizes the importance of the family for society and individuals, and that countries must strengthen and protect the family. The resolution not only echoes language from the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights about the family as the “natural and fundamental unit of society,” it also states that the family is the “ natural environment ” for the education and development of children. The resolution does not sit well with countries that giv...

Above Gsteig, Swiss Alps (Photo credit: will_cyclist ) The Regional Council of Lombardy , which includes the city of Milan, has voted to approve a motion protecting “the natural family” and rejecting the imposition of “gender ideology” in schools. The Lombardy region is the most populated and economically prosperous in Italy . Motion 263 explicitly states that marriage is only between one man and one woman, establishes an annual celebration of the Day of the Natural Family for the region, and calls on the Regional Council to introduce the “Family Factor” as a criterion in determining taxes to “support active and passive income of Lombard families.” Simone Pillon, head of the National Council Of Families Forum, called the motion “a decisive and forceful move to tell the world that Italy is not following this dictatorship of the LGBT lobby.” “The fight against unfair discrimination cannot be translated into incitement to homosexuality,” Pillon said. “The text of the motion makes e...

NEW YORK , February 27, 2014 ( C-FAM.org ) - Angry over not getting a same-sex-friendly definition of the family into a new UN document, the Obama Administration tried to delete language agreed upon by the founders of the UN and repeated in documents since then. Regularly contentious in recent decades, the family has been a diplomatic football with one side eager to recognize “diverse forms of the family” while the other holds on to the understanding that the family is the “natural and fundamental group unit of society” taken directly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Behind closed doors, US negotiators asked to replace the definition of family from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a lengthy new description of families that have “diverse forms and functions” and express “diversity of individual preferences.” The proposed definition excluded the notion of the natural family, based on the union of a man and woman, as the norm for the procreation ...

PRAGUE, August 22, 2012 ( LifeSiteNews.com ) - Pro-family leaders around the world have condemned an endorsement by the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic of a Czech homosexual festival held over the weekend. The World Congress of Families (WCF) issued  an open letter  signed by more than 120 pro-family and pro-life leaders from 11 countries, after U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen addressed the opening of the Prague Pride Festival on August 13. “I am truly honored to be here today representing the United States and President Obama in the effort to ensure the rights of the global LGBT community ,” Eisen said, adding that he spoke on behalf of ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and the charge d’affaires of the Danish and Dutch embassies, who signed a letter of support for the homosexual event. Signers of the WCF letter include Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King, former Arkansas G...

Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The international pro-family and pro-life community has expressed outrage at an apparent policy of the Obama administration to offer its strongest support possible to gay activist events throughout the world. Organizations from a dozen countries, including the United States , have signed a letter demanding that the U.S. Embassy in Prague cancel plans to participate in the Czech Republic's gay pride parade on Aug. 18. Don Feder , Communications Director of the World Congress of Families Leadership, has noted that the widespread support for the letter gives a clear indication of the "outrage" being felt. "Obama is the first president to embrace gay marriage and the gay rights agenda. Many people simply can't believe that the American government is doing these things," said Feder in a phone interview with The Chris...