CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Legal counsel Paul Coleman has spoken of the increasing persecution of Christians in Europe, identifying the main groups driving ideological agendas counter to Church teaching.<\/p>\n\tAnti-Christian ideologies at the U.N. are \u201cbeing advanced by three different groups,\u201d Coleman told CNA in a March 23 interview, the first being \u201cactivist organizations, the primary drivers behind the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThen you have liberal, primarily Western countries driving the movement,\u201d and finally \u201cthe institutions themselves at the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tColeman is legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom at its office in Vienna, where he specializes in international litigation, focusing on European law.<\/p>\n
\tHe was in Rome for the organization\u2019s March 24 \u2013 27 Media Convention, during which he gave a testimony detailing his time working with the Blackstone Legal Fellowship leadership training program, which educates law students on issues regarding religious freedom, which are not typically taught in law schools.<\/p>\n
\tExplaining some of the trends currently taking place, Coleman observed that one of the biggest is \u201cthe attempt to create a right to abortion in international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere are many documents that are discussed at the United Nations where the phrase \u2018reproductive health and rights\u2019 and \u2018sexual reproductive health and rights\u2019 appear constantly \u2026 no matter what the issue is that\u2019s being discussed, they always find a way to include those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAnother growing theme is that of the \u201cSOGI movement\u201d \u2014 sexual orientation, gender identity movement \u2014 which has emerged forcefully only \u201cwithin the last decade,\u201d Coleman noted.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s seeking to promote the terms sexual orientation and gender identity on an international level, and seeking to provide protections\u201d and \u201cto change international laws to include those terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tOne of the dangers present in this movement is that \u201cthe terms sexual orientation and gender identity are terms that aren\u2019t particularly well understood,\u201d he observed, adding that this terminology \u201cchanges, and that it can mean whatever people want it to mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIn effect, sexual orientation is\u201d a code for \u201chomosexuality and homosexual behavior,\u201d the lawyer continued, \u201cand gender identity is a code for transsexualism or people who feel they are not male or female, but something different, something between, or nothing at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tReferring again to the three groups pushing these ideologies, Coleman stated that \u201caligned together they can be very effective\u201d in advancing these causes.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe see for example, the United Kingdom has said it would withhold aid for Third World countries if those countries don\u2019t change their laws on homosexuality\u201d and \u201cwe see in America President Obama saying it\u2019s a foreign policy priority to promote homosexuality across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThese are powerful countries with huge international aid budgets, and they\u2019re helping to push this issue around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tExplaining the process of how these agendas are being advanced, Coleman recalled how the U.N. was founded after World War Two in order to protect and secure human rights, and to \u201cguarantee the rights of man against the government\u201d and \u201cagainst government tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFollowing the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was created in order to ensure this protection, the lawyer detailed how numerous treaties were created focusing on the safeguarding of the \u201cfundamental rights of the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tGoing on to describe what has happened in recent years, Coleman said these treaties \u201care being re-interpreted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhere international treaties say, for example, that people have the right to health, that\u2019s being interpreted as saying, \u2018well health includes reproductive health, and reproductive health, abortion; therefore there is a right to abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tTurning to the topic of marriage, the lawyer observed that \u201cwhere a treaty says that everyone has a right to marry, the treaties actually say men and women of marry-able age have the right to marry, and that\u2019s being re-interpreted as saying \u2018well, there it says men and women. We should really interpret it in modern-day circumstances, so it should be man-and-man, and women-and-women.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAnother way in which these movements are advanced, he explained, is by \u201cignoring\u201d the treaties \u201ccompletely,\u201d commenting that \u201cinstead of these treaties which have been signed by nations\u201d and \u201cwhich have been approved at the very highest level, we find that lots of other documents are drafted and approved with very little scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey are used as a tool to kind of force nations to change their laws,\u201d the lawyer continued, noting that although nations can refuse, \u201cthey don\u2019t want to be constantly harassed by the United Nations or the European Union\u201d for not keeping their human rights obligations, so they don\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n
\tEventually, he said, \u201cif they\u2019re told constantly, you need to change your laws on abortion, you need to change your laws on homosexuality, then that pressure can lead to change at a domestic level.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tColeman then offered comments on a recent report given by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child report that condemned the Holy See\u2019s child protection policies and called for the Church to change its doctrine regarding abortion and homosexuality.<\/p>\n
\tNoting that the committee is designed \u201cto monitor the country\u2019s progress in keeping up with the convention on the rights of the child,\u201d it went \u201cfar beyond its mandate\u201d with the report.<\/p>\n
\tIt essentially took \u201cthe opportunity to criticize very heavily the Catholic Church, Catholic doctrine, and the Holy See on a number of issues that have nothing to do with the rights of children,\u201d adding that \u201cit was a perfect example of how these international bodies have gone far beyond their original mandates, and gone far beyond the founding of the United Nations itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe U.N., he explained, was designed in order \u201cto bring the nations together in peace and harmony, and not to override their state sovereignty and certainly not to criticize doctrines of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Rome, Italy, Mar 30, 2014 \/ 07:01 am (CNA\/EWTN News).- Legal counsel Paul Coleman has spoken of the increasing persecution of Christians in Europe, identifying the main groups driving ideological agendas counter to Church teaching.<\/p>\n
\tAnti-Christian id…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"yoast_head":"\n
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