Response to the UN’s “Call for Input to a Thematic Report: Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI)”

The following is a response to a United Nations’ “Call for Input to a Thematic Report: Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI).” Victor Madrigal-Borloz, UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on SOGI, issued the call to inform his June 2023 report to the UN Human Rights Council on the right to FoRB in relation to SOGI. 

Principal author of this response is W. Cole Durham, Jr., founding director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS). Contributors include Alexander Dushku, shareholder at Kirton McConkie; Scott E. Isaacson, shareholder at Kirton McConkie and ICLRS senior fellow; Denise Posse Lindberg, Utah senior district judge (Third District Court, inactive) and ICLRS senior fellow; and David H. Moore, former UN Human Rights Committee member and current associate director of the ICLRS and Sterling and Eleanor Colton Endowed Chair for Law and Religion at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. This Response reflects the personal views of the author and contributors and not necessarily those of their employers or sponsoring institutions.

Tensions regarding competing claims for freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights have been central to “culture wars” for many years. Addressing this tension in the context of a thematic report for the United Nations calls for particular wisdom and balance. A holistic approach sensitive to the countervailing considerations is particularly vital in this area. In many parts of the world, resentment of LGBT+ agendas takes the form of general disenchantment with the international human rights movement. On the other hand, FoRB claims in certain quarters are read as masks for bigotry. Such polarized and polarizing positions are both excessive and surely mark a failure of discourse and a deeper failure to apprehend the reciprocal claims to human dignity involved.

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Peacebuilding and the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Jennifer G. Woods is Legal Counsel and the Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty at the Lake Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. She delivered the following remarks during a panel discussing “Religion’s Roles in Peacebuilding: Reflections from Religious Leaders” at the ICLRS 29th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 4 October 2022. At that time, she was Associate Director of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty.

We are living in an increasingly unstable and dangerous world.[1]

Total War

Humanity has, since the middle of the last century, been living in an age of total war. Total war implies the theoretical possibility that, except for the providence of God, earth’s inhabitants could wipe out their entire civilization. Nuclear weapons and biochemical arms of mass destruction are aimed at centers of population. Whole nations and societies are mobilized or targeted for war, and when such war erupts it is carried on with the greatest violence and destruction. The justification of war has become more complex, even though advances in technology make possible greater precision in destroying targets with a minimum of civilian casualties.

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The AMAR Foundation: Remedies to Religious Persecution, Lessons in Peacebuilding

Andrew Methven is The AMAR International Charitable Foundation’s Chief of Staff, based in its London office. The following is an edited summary of his remarks given 3 October 2022 at the ICLRS 29th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, which focused on “Religion’s Roles in Peacebuilding.”

The Work of the AMAR Foundation

The AMAR International Charitable Foundation was founded by our chairman, Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne, in 1991 to aid the Marsh Arabs, who had been driven by Saddam Hussein to refugee camps in Lebanon and Iran. AMAR’s model was to provide practical help in the form of health care, through Primary Health Care Clinics (PHCCs), and education, through schools. It relied on using Iraqis’ own human capital—doctors and teachers—and raising funds at the market rate for them to run their own clinics and schools in the refugee camps. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, AMAR went on to establish 83 schools and 75 clinics in Baghdad and the Basra Marshes, now mostly handed over to local authorities in a sustainable way. Over the years, AMAR has delivered more than 10.5 million consultations. AMAR has also worked in other countries, including Romania/Ukraine, Somaliland, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Lebanon.

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