page_title: Political activity of the Catholic Church on LGBT issues
section_title: National level
hierarchical_section_title: Political activity of the Catholic Church on LGBT issues / Decriminalization of homosexuality / National level
caption_attribution_description: English: Oswald Gracias at Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine, Villianur to bless the new entrance
context_page_description: The political activity of the Catholic Church on LGBT issues consists of efforts made by the Roman Catholic Church to support or oppose civil government legislation on the basis of Catholic moral theology and Catholic Social Teaching surrounding issues of importance to LGBT people. The Church generally condemns all forms of violence against gay and lesbian people and all criminal penalties against them. However, the Church in certain countries has on occasion actively resisted efforts to decriminalize homosexuality or to introduce measures to tackle discrimination. The Catholic Church also supports legally defining marriage in civil legislation as the union of one man and one woman, therefore generally opposing efforts to introduce gay civil unions and gay marriage – although some clergymen have expressed support for same-sex unions. The Church teaches that not all discrimination is "unjust," and that sometimes the rights of individuals, including gay men and women, can be limited. The Church is active in local, national, and international forums.
context_section_description: In various countries, members of the Catholic Church have intervened on occasions both to both support efforts to decriminalize homosexuality, and also to ensure it remains an offence under criminal law.
  In the 1960s, the Catholic Church supported the call of the Wolfenden report to introduce legislation to decriminalise homosexual acts in England and Wales. In Australia, Cardinal Archbishop Norman Thomas Gilroy supported efforts begun in the 1970s to likewise change the law. In the United States the Catholic National Federation of Priests' Councils declared their opposition to "all civil laws which make consensual homosexual acts between adults a crime."
  In New Zealand in the 1980s, although the Church declined to submit a formal response to the parliamentary enquiry on decriminalization, Cardinal Williams did issue a statement opposing homosexual law reform. In the 1970s and 1980s in  Belize, and India, the local churches opposed the decriminalization of homosexual acts.  These positions were against those of the Vatican. However, in later years, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Mumbai, spoke out against India's anti-sodomy law. Gracias, a President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India and one of the eight members of Pope Francis's Council of Cardinal Advisers, declared it wrong to make gay people criminals, since the Catholic Church "teaches that homosexuals have the same dignity of every human being and condemns all forms of unjust discrimination, harassment or abuse."
  Days after a law was signed criminalizing homosexual acts in Nigeria, an editorial in "The Southern Cross" (a newspaper run jointly by the bishops of South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland) criticised the law, calling on the Catholic Church in Africa to stand with the powerless and "sound the alarm at the advance throughout Africa of draconian legislation aimed at criminalizing homosexuals." It noted the "deep-seated sense of homophobia" in Africa and said the Catholic church had too often been "silent, in some cases even quietly complicit" in the face of the new anti-gay measures.  At least one bishop argued that the Catholic Church would "defend any person with a homosexual orientation who is being harassed, who is being imprisoned, who is being punished." Reports suggested that the influence of Pope Francis may have led to him modify his former position.
  In Uganda, some bishops joined other religious leaders in calling on parliamentarians to make progress in enacting an anti-homosexuality bill.  In 2015, Bishop Giuseppe Franzelli in the Diocese of Lira, denied that the Catholic Church in Uganda is institutionally behind any push towards anti-gay legislation, and called for "respect and love" for gay people. Rather he blamed fundamentalist US Christian groups as well as "individual Catholics, including some bishops," for encouraging greater criminal sanctions.
  The Papal Nuncio to Uganda, Archbishop Michael Blume, voiced concern and shock at the bill.
  In Kenya, Bishop Alfred Rotich welcomed a ruling from the High Court in May 2019 which upheld the laws against gay sex.
caption: Cardinal Oswald Gracias condemned "all forms of unjust discrimination, harassment or abuse" against LGBT people.[14]
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