There’s an ongoing dispute at the UN Human Rights Council about the limits to the persecution of LGBT people. In a speech in Geneva this evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out strongly against any decisions that would countenance laws criminalizing gay and lesbian people.
“”The existence of laws discriminating against sexual minorities as such can have no justification in societies that are serious about law itself,” Williams declared in a public lecture at the headquarters of the ecumenical WCC.
“Such laws reflect a refusal to recognize that minorities belong, and they are indeed comparable to racial discrimination,” the archbishop said.
Concern for protection of sexual minorities from violence and intimidation did not imply approval of homosexual behavior on moral grounds. “Religion and culture have their own arguments on these matters,” he added.
“But a culture that argues about such things is a culture that is able to find a language in common. Criminalize a minority and there is no chance of such a language in common or of any properly civil or civic discussion.””
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Pakistan, representing the 57 nation Organization for Islamic Cooperation is opposed to any UN action that would be critical of persecution because such questions have nothing to do with fundamental human rights.