Commission Drops Discussion of Sexual Orientation

CROSSWALK.COM , April 30 — A resolution to expand the United Nations’ list of human-rights violations to include discrimination based on “sexual orientation” might be off the table for now, but family groups predict supporters of the issue will lobby even harder when it comes up for a vote next year.

“This issue never goes away,” Douglas Sylva, director of research at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a pro-family U.N. lobby organization, told Crosswalk, a Christian Web site. After heated debate at the 59th session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva on April 25, the commission ended discussion on the resolution without a vote.

The proposal was introduced by Brazil and co-sponsored by 19 other nations, including most European nations and Canada. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission described the resolution as “a historic opportunity.”

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya and Malaysia, saying the resolution did not reflect Islamic values, offered amendments deleting the sexual language from the proposed document. The United States remained neutral.

Anglicans Respond to Eucharist Encyclical

INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS , April 23 — The Church of England on April 23 responded to Pope John Paul II's recent encyclical on the Eucharist, according to Independent Catholic World News.

The response said, in part: “The Anglican Communion Office notes with respect the publication this Maundy Thursday of the papal encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia. His Holiness the Pope has chosen an appropriate moment to draw the attention of all Christians to the central place of the Eucharist in the life of the Christian faithful and eloquently expressed afresh the Roman Catholic understanding of this sacrament. He speaks of his personal experience of the celebration of this sacrament as a way of introducing a theological exploration of its importance in the life of the Church and of the boundaries of its proper celebration, which include a restatement of the existing limitations on Eucharistic sharing as defined by the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church.”

The Anglicans promised further study of the document.

Group Questions End of Sudan Sanctions

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS , April 23 — The Sudanese government on April 23 welcomed President Bush's decision not to impose further sanctions on it in recognition of its efforts to forge a peace deal with long-oppressed Christian and animist rebels.

Under American law, every six months the president must evaluate whether the government and the rebels are pursuing peace talks “in good faith,” the French news agency reported.

The agency noted that the civil war in that country has killed some 1.5 million people and created 4 million refugees in the past 20 years. But human-rights groups questioned Sudan's good faith and Washington's judgment.

“Sudan's radical Islamist dictatorship is now ecstatic at the approval that George W. Bush has given it,” said Mel Middleton of Freedom Quest International. He also pointed to “recent serious violations of ... cease-fire agreements,” including helicopter gunship attacks and chemical weapons used recently against civilians.