Fundamental rights must always be respected, says Vatican official

(March 22,2011) A State should never punish a person, or deprive a person of any human right, based just on the person’s feelings, or thoughts, including sexual thoughts and feelings. But States can and must regulate behaviours, including sexual behaviours. These remarks were made by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Holy See’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in his address to the 16^th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday. Throughout the world, he said, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of behaviours must be forbidden by law. He noted that paedophilia and incest are two examples. Archbishop Tomasi affirmed the Holy See’s belief that human sexuality is a gift that is genuinely expressed in the complete and lifelong mutual devotion of a man and a woman in marriage. He called attention to a disturbing trend in some of the social debates, where people are attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex. When they express their moral beliefs, they may also be expressions of religious convictions, he said, yet they are vilified and prosecuted. He stressed that these attacks are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified under any circumstances.