Protect Religious Freedoms | Protect Religious Freedoms

A Call to Protect Religious Freedoms Worldwide

Sign the Letter!

Tell the UN to Withdraw Report Attacking Religious Freedoms 

 

A new UN report issued by the UN Special Rapporteur on religious freedom or belief calls upon governments to legalize abortion, eliminate conscience clauses for medical professionals, mandate controversial comprehensive sexuality education beginning at age 10, and legalize controversial LGBT rights, ironically, all under the banner of promoting religious freedom. Help stop this report which is slated to be presented to the UN General Assembly in the fall of 2020.

PROTECT RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

RELIGIOUS LEADER SIGN-ON LETTER

We, as religious leaders representing diverse religions throughout the world, are deeply concerned by a recent report issued by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief (A/HRC/43/48). Alarmingly, this report, under the banner of protecting religious freedom, instead, distorts and undermines religious freedom.

 

We therefore call upon all UN Member States to reject this ultra vires report and for the appropriate UN entities to strike this report from UN records.

 

UN Special Rapporteurs are required to be unbiased protectors of true human rights, yet this Rapporteur has sought to advance a distorted notion of human rights at the expense of universally recognized religious freedom rights.

 

Human Rights Distortions

 

Throughout the report, the Rapporteur pits concepts of widely contested and controversial sexual rights against well-established religious freedom rights that the Special Rapporteur is duty bound to protect. A few examples of the report’s egregious assaults on religious freedoms include:

 

  • Falsely claims protections for children from controversial “sexuality education programs” and strong legal protections for unborn children violate alleged “sexual and reproductive rights,” a term which has been rejected by many UN Member States in UN consensus documents.

 

  • Declares that conscious clauses (which protect a person’s right not to be compelled to act in ways that violate their religious beliefs) constitute “discrimination.”

 

  • Stigmatizes and labels as “conversion therapy,” any therapy that affirms and supports “lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender nonconforming persons” in their goal to align their internal perception of their gender with their God-given biological sex or their sexual behavior to be congruent with their own personal values and beliefs. The report actually calls such therapy, which has helped countless individuals, “gender-based violence.”

 

  • Cites multiple ultra vires and nonbinding human rights committee pronouncements to support misguided attempts to redefine the term “sex” in binding treaties to encompass special protections for sexual orientation and gender identities including “trans status.”
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