Welcome to Call to Decision 

 

Friday Fax  August 7, 2008 | Volume 11, Number 34

Dear Colleague,      More scoops for you. The reason I keep repeating that is because the Friday Fax is the only weekly source of this kind of news. No one from our side covers this beat like we do. You should spread the word far and wide.      We report today on a resolution of the Organization of American States that basically endorses hate crimes based on “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Even the Bush Administration endorsed this resolution that could come to be used against religious people who criticize homosexual behavior, like this Friday Fax.      We also report on the mega-AIDs conference meeting right now in Mexico City. There is one “Catholic” panel at the conference and it is being chaired by the anti-Catholic group Catholics for Choice. Funny old world, isn’t it?      Spread the word.      Yours sincerely,      Austin Ruse President

Brazil Successfully Pushes Homosexual Rights at OAS Meeting By Samantha Singson           (NEW YORK — C-FAM) The global homosexual movement made significant strides at the Organization of American States (OAS) with passage of a resolution that comes close to making sexual orientation a protected human rights category. Recently, the 38th General Assembly of the OAS passed a resolution entitled “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,” presented by the Brazilian delegation.           The resolution "expresses concern about acts of violence and related human rights violations committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity." This is similar to hate crimes legislation that is percolating in the United States and elsewhere. The resolution does not make sexual orientation or gender identity as part of the list of established non-discrimination categories such as race, religion and sex. The resolution also agrees to keep the issue on the agenda for future consideration by the OAS Permanent Council and the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs.           Homosexual activist groups claimed victory and heralded the OAS move. The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) called the resolution “unprecedented” and touted that “this is the first time in the history of the hemisphere that the words sexual orientation and gender identity appear in an official document approved by the 34 countries of the Americas.”           A coalition of homosexual non-governmental organizations, including ILGA and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, lobbied hard during the OAS meetings to pass the resolution and called upon countries to “repeal all criminalizing and discriminatory legislation, and promote cultural, social and institutional changes which are aimed at preventing and punishing discrimination and violence.”      The Brazilian-sponsored non-binding resolution was passed by consensus meaning that all OAS countries agreed including the United States.      This is not the first time Brazil has pushed a pro-homosexual agenda at the international level. In 2003 at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Brazil introduced a resolution which attempted to make “sexual orientation” part of the list of protected non-discrimination categories. That measure failed because of staunch resistance by UN member states who feared that making sexual orientation a non-discrimination category could lead to the imposition of special legal rights based on “sexual orientation” and court-imposed homosexual “marriage” that would include jailing of religious leaders for speaking out against homosexuality.      Critics fear that the OAS resolution will make it difficult for states to refuse to include sexual orientation in the text of the Inter-American Convention against Racism and All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance which has been in negotiations for at least two years. The current draft of the Convention defines discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preferences based on race, color, ethnic origin, gender, age, sexual orientation…whose purpose or effect is to nullify or curtail equal recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or other realm of public or private life.”       The draft convention also directs states to enact legislation defining a hate crime as a crime committed with an animus or motive based on “race, ethnic origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, and other similar forms of discrimination,” and to establish criminal and civil penalties for such crimes.      Negotiations on the draft Inter-American Convention are expected to resume next year.

Right to Abortion Emphasized at UN AIDS Conference in Mexico City By Piero A. Tozzi           (NEW YORK — C-FAM) Abortion rights advocates are using the XVII International AIDS Conference taking place this week in Mexico City to advance a pro-abortion agenda and to criticize the Catholic Church for not blessing the distribution of condoms. Known as “AIDS 2008,” the biennial conference is sponsored by the International AIDS Society and bears the supporting imprimatur of the United Nations’ UNAIDS agency and the World Health Organization.           The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a public interest law firm that advocates for abortion, is hosting three talks during AIDS 2008 addressing the denial of “medically necessary abortions” to HIV positive women, among other topics. CRR has long boasted that it “pioneered” the use of international litigation in seeking to impose abortion throughout Latin America and elsewhere. The group has been active in Mexico, filing a third-party intervention in a case currently pending before that country’s Supreme Court in support of a liberalized first-trimester abortion law passed by Mexico City’s Legislative Assembly last year.           Critics note that the only “Catholic” organization to participate formally in the Conference is the dissident group “Catholics for Choice.” As part of the AIDS 2008 program, the pro-abortion group held a “skills-building workshop” called “Good Catholics Use Condoms: How to Answer the Tough Questions Surrounding HIV/AIDS Prevention and Religion.”           Katharina Rothweiler, the International Coordinator of the Mexican pro-life and pro-family organization Red Familia, criticized the presence of “pro-choice and pro-contraceptive lobby groups” at the conference. In response to the perceived emphasis that the officially-sponsored program places on condom distribution programs, Red Familia organized shadow events emphasizing “zero risk” abstinence and fidelity as a key to halting AIDS.           Anti-AIDS programs emphasizing such behavioral change succeeded in reducing the percentage of people infected with the HIV virus in the African nation of Uganda from over 20% in the early 90s to roughly 6% in a bit over a decade. Whereas in 1989, fifteen percent of Ugandan men had three or more sex partners per year, that number dropped to only 3 percent in 1995.           Uganda’s rejection of the condom-emphasizing approach, also known as the ABC model (Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms as a last resort), has earned it the enmity of the orthodox AIDS lobby. AIDS 2008 featured a symposium session chaired by Frances Kissling – the former president of “Catholics for Choice,” who stepped down last year – aimed at discrediting the ABC approach as “ideological.”           Still, the Ugandan model is attracting notice. India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training recently announced that it would embrace the Ugandan emphasis on abstinence and fidelity in its sex education curricula. Significantly, a study authored by a research team headed by Harvard’s Daniel Halperin that appeared in the May 2008 issue of Science magazine, “Reassessing HIV Prevention,” found empirical evidence supporting aspects of the Ugandan approach. Visit us at http://www.c-fam.org/.

Editor in Chief  –  Austin Ruse Managing Editor  –  Piero Tozzi Assistant Managing Editor  –  Hannah Russo