Saturday, December 19, 2009

Uganda's Anti-Gay Law: Opposition Grounded in Bipartisan Confluence of Human Rights and Public Health

The following is a posting of mine in response to Mark Dybuhl's "Uganda's Anti-Gay Law: Opposition Grounded in Bipartisan Confluence of Human Rights and Public Health" at Huffington Post yesterday (a link is provided at the end):

I'm puzzled by the statement that the Holy See has made a statement about the Ugandan legislation.

The sole statement to come from the Vatican was an ambiguous statement by a low-level Vatican representative, in a webcast to a U.N. committee discussion discrimination against LGBT people. The Vatican official did not even mention Uganda, but was thought to be speaking against Uganda's consideration of the death penalty for gays and lesbians.

Pope Benedict has been absolutely silent. When people talk about the Holy See making a statement, they almost always mean the Pope--not a low-level Vatican official.

The statement that the Holy See has spoken out seems to be disinformation. For many Catholics (and I'm one of them), Benedict's silence has been scandalous--and I do not wish to let him off the hook for remaining silent.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost