Gay rights in the Vatican City

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Contents 1 Criminal Law 2 Civil Rights 3 AIDS/HIV 4 See also

[edit] Criminal Law

In the 1980s the Vatican City formally legalized non-commerical, non-fraternal homosexual practices between consenting adults in private. It is not know what the age of consent is in the city, but it is probably 18.

However, the Vatican City is a Catholic theocratic city state and thus homosexuality and cross-dressing are both strongly frowned upon by the government and the population. Thus any public displays of affection or public acknowledgement of homosexuality or cross-dressing is likely prohibited or taboo.

[edit] Civil Rights

Vatican City does not have any civil rights provisions that include sexual orientation or gender identity. Homosexual acts are deemed to be always evil under the offical Catholic Chuch doctrine and thus it is highly unlike the city will enact such anti-discrimination legislation in the forseable future.

In July 1999, the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered Father Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick to halt their 30 years of pastoral work among gay and lesbian Catholics. In the profession of faith they were made to sign, they had to "firmly accept and hold that homosexual acts are always objectively evil" and that "the homosexual inclination must be considered objectively disordered".

In 2000 the Vatican took the offical position that transsexualism does not exist and that transgender people are in fact mentally ill [1].

In 2005 The Vatican government enacted a new policy that stipulated that gay or bisexual men would no longer be eligible to enter the Seminary and the Holy Orders. This was in response to a number of high profile allegations in the previous years that some priests were sexually molesting boys and girls. This report was titled Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.

In 2007 Italian members of the LGBT human rights group Arcigay held a protest in honor of the memory of an Italian gay writer named Alfredo Ormando who committed suicide in 1998 and to protest the efforts by the Vatican government to persuade other governments not to extend legal benifits to same sex couples.

Internationally the Vatican government has campaigned against nations giving legal recongition to same-sex couples, gay people being eligible to adopt or have custody of children and against the usage of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS-HIV [2].

[edit] AIDS/HIV

Offically no one living in the Vatican City is infected with AIDS or HIV. Internationally the Vatican government has been a leading opponent of the usage of condoms as part of a campaign to stop the spread of the AIDS-HIV pandemic [3].

In 2006 the Vatican government said it was conducting a scientific and moral study on the usage of condoms in the fight against the pandemic [[4]].

[edit] See also

• Roman Catholic views on homosexuality.
• Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders